The Pandoren Knight
by Mgellan
Summary: This isn't the life I wanted, I mean, why me? I'm just some video game nerd from England, why was I, of all people, sent hurtling through time and space to this planet? but... if this is my chance to do something good, to help others, then I will do all that is necessary to survive on this rock named Pandora. Self-insert
1. Welcome to Pandora

My first thought upon waking up was ' _hey, why does my bed feel so hard?'_

My first thought upon opening my eyes was ' _WHY THE FUCK AM I IN A CAVE?'_

I shot up, looking around franticly for… _something_ to explain my situation, but only saw some items around on the floor that were quickly filed in my brain as unimportant.

I pinched myself, making sure that I wasn't having some strange dream and swearing loudly when nothing happed.

 _Ok Dom, just look around and try to figure out what the bloody hell is going on here_

I grabbed everything I could find in the small cave; there was a backpack filled with miscellaneous supplies- food, water, camping stuff, that sort of thing-, a recurve bow with a quiver full of arrows, a machete, and, of all things, a dark green cloak.

Whilst doing this, I noticed that I was fully dressed in a black t-shirt with a deadpool logo on it, black jeans, and black trainers (man, I own a lot of black clothes now that I think about it…)

I was also wearing a necklace my big brother got me when he went to a theme park, a little metal pendent of a dragon head, with wings coming out of the side and a red plastic gem in its forehead, breathing fire.

I only say this because it was also on the back of the aforementioned cloak in black, just another thing to add to the ever-growing list of questions.

Taking everything and donning the cloak with a 'fuck you, cloaks are cool´ to fashion, I left the cave.

And my brain promptly shut down when I saw the outside.

I was in a desert, that much was obvious, with sand and… more sand, a few rock here and there, but that wasn't what I was freaking out over.

Even though it was day, I could clearly see the moon, a moon much bigger and closer then Earth's moon, with a space station vaguely shaped like the letter 'H' floating in front of it.

My first thought upon seeing this?

 _SWEET HOLY FUCK NUGGETS OF ALL THINGS NERDY I'M ON PARDORA!_

After getting over the shock of, y'know, BEING IN THE WORLD OF MY FAVORITE VIDEO GAME, I began exploring, the bow in my hands and the machete and quiver on my belt (which, for those of you who get your archery knowledge from inaccurate movies and games, is were it's supposed to go) in case I needed to defend myself from skags or bandits or-

Bandits.

Could…Could I really…do it? End someone else's life, even if it's in self defence?

"YOU'VE GOT TEN SECONDS TO PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD BEFORE WE RIP THEM OFF, BITCH!"

Looks like I'm about to find out.

Coming over the next dune I saw two cars - a large van and a pickup truck I remember being called a 'Bandit Technical' in game - parked in the middle of a dirt road.

Standing between them were a woman with an annoyed expression and a small group of bandits, five to be exact, three marauders and two psychos.

"Oh come on!" yelled the woman "We paid the Marrow Drinker's 'road tax' a week ago!"

The lead marauder cockily waved his pistol and I had no problems imagining him smirking behind his mask "See, that's the thing; this ain't Marrow Drinkers territory any more, you're in Anarc country now"

That's when I noticed the outfits, see, in the game, bandits wore different clothes in different places, to show they were part of separate clans, but I had never seen these guy's uniforms before; the marauders had their hair in Mohawks and punk spikes and shit like that, red hockey masks, and jackets and pants made of leather; the psychos wore more or less the some old outfit, but the usually orange pants were red, and their chests and arms were covered in tattoos and scars, most notably anarchy symbols that had been branded on to their backs.

"Fine! Good for you!" said the woman, annoyed "how much do you want before you let us go?"

"The way I see it, we could just kill you and take it all… after having our fun, of course! Ain't that right, boys?" The bandits all started to laugh in a way I don't think _anyone_ would like.

N-no…I-I couldn't let this happen! I-I can't, I-I…

I won't.

Staying as calm as I could, I went though the same motions I had nearly every Friday night at archery class, I stood sideways, head facing towards my target, I lifted my bow in my left hand, drew an arrow from the quiver, placed it on the string, bent my arm slightly so the string won't hit my arm.

Breathe in.

Aim.

 _Release._

I didn't miss.

Bile rose to my throat as I watched the arrow sink into the side of his head, but I forced it down as I dunked behind the dune, bullets flying where I just stood.

Footsteps rapidly approached as a manic voice yelled "LICK AND SCREAM, AND PEE! I'M COMING TO MAKE YOU TEETH!"

I threw the bow down and took the machete out of its sheath, as the first psycho came in to sight.

I raised the blade; barely managing to block the swipe of what I am fairly certain was a table leg, he swung again and I was able to dodge backwards before rushing at him with the blade.

I must have hit something important, because he stopped trying to kill me.

As I pushed him off the other one blindsided me and pushed me to the floor, raising a weapon that looked like a buzzsaw on a stick "I need another head for my merry-go-round" he yelled, pulling a lever on his buzzaxe, causing it to spin "YOURS IS PERFECT!"

I closed my eyes and held my hands out to try and do… _something!_

I felt a strange sensation and heard the crazed man scream.

I opened my eyes to see him twitching on the ground, and my hand giving off sparks.

W-what? How… did I?...

"Hey skaglick!" yelled a voice from the other side of the dune "if you surrender now maybe we'll just shoot ya!"

They were getting closer; I couldn't use the bow this close, who knows where the machete went, and I don't know how or even what I did to that psycho.

Maybe I could try to run past them, grab that first guy's gun and…

No…

I was doomed, plan and simple.

I closed my eyes waiting, for the inevitable and-

Another strange feeling, and when I opened my eyes I was next to the marauder's corpse.

H-how- no, don't think, just shoot.

I picked up the pistol, aiming as best I could at the men who hadn't yet noticed my disappearing act and…

 _BANG! BANG!_

Twice more, I didn't miss.

The woman, who had apparently hidden behind her van when the bandits where focused on me, walked over "thanks for the save, I don't even want to think what those guys wer-"

I threw up.

After I was done she said "First time you killed a man? Just think about this kid, they were going to kill you, rape and kill me, steal my shit, and then go on to do the same thing to everyone they saw; you did the right thing"

I weakly muttered in agreement.

She nodded "good, go grab your stuff, and anything valuable those bastards had, a ride to the next town's the least I can do"

I nodded, doing as I was asked, before walking back to the van.

To my new life.

Hello, people who saw this fic and thought 'eh, I'll give it a read'! My name is Mgellan.

This weird little idea has been floating around in my head for about two years now, and I finally decided to write it down.

A few notes:

1: Yes, this is a self insert, if you don't like that, don't read, in fact, if you don't like anything in this story, don't read, I'm not forcing you or anything.

2: This is my first fic, so please don't hate too hard if it's a bit shit.

3: I'll try to get at least one chapter out every month (keyword: _Try_ )

4: this is slight AU, it's still the borderlands universe, but I've added some things (like my strange powers, which will be explained at some point) or changed some things to make a bit more sense.

5: Yes, I (as in, me in the story) have played borderlands, no, I won't use my knowledge of the game's plot or anything like that, you'll see why.

6: I'm open to constructive criticism, but if you're just an arsehole, I _will_ ignore the shit out of you.

7: just mentioning, I don't own borderlands, or Deadpool, I do, however, own a shirt with his logo on it. _And it makes you feel SO sexy!_ GET OUT OF MY AUTHORS NOTES, WADE!

So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.

Later, mates!


	2. Why I don't trust trains anymore

**I do not own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder**

* * *

 ** _15/10/2566. Three months after arrival._**

The last few months have been… hectic to say the least.

After that nice woman got me to some town in the middle of nowhere, I spent my time learning as much as I could so that no one questions why I don't know something that everyone should know.

I have discovered that my knowledge of the borderlands games (which was normally as infinite as my nerdiness) was now… spotty at best.

I could remember some things, such as the names of animals, or general lore (although, I still needed to learn about things like non-Pandoren history and technology that badarse space warriors don't tend to encounter), but things like characters or the plot were simply gone from my mind.

Yes, yes, make jokes about how I've 'lost the plot'…moving on.

I… have also become less… 'sensitive', I guess; turns out, when you're forced to kill on a near-daily basis, you get desensitized fast.

I have become… something of a wandering vigilante, I do have a house, with a nice roommate (and by 'house' I mean 'mostly intact crashed spaceship' and by 'roommate' I mean 'semi-crazed AI'), but I like to walk the wastes, saving people and cleaning up the local bandit problem.

I have also been experimenting with my new powers, I have no idea how they work, but I can use them; I seem to have the ability to blink (short-range teleportation), as well as electrokinesis and hydrokinesis (mental control over electricity and water).

A few days ago, the Hyperion corporation (who everyone on Pandora knows is up to no good) had invited me and other 'people of interest' to join a team searching for a Vault.

Vaults, capitol V, are ancient cashes of tech left behind all over the universe by the alien race known as the Eridians, who disappeared centuries ago.

It is said that whoever opens a Vault shall have everything they ever want… if they can beat the guardians that is.

It was obviously a trap, Hyperion's CEO, Handsome Jack (how arrogant do you have be to add 'Handsome' to your name?) wants the Vault for himself, so it makes sense he would lure anyone else who wants it to one place, and get rid of them.

Which is why I accepted his invitation.

If I was going to have any chance to meet others who don't want Jack getting his hands on some alien super weapon or something, it was here, on this train that Hyperion have going around to different parts of the continent to pick up Vault Hunters.

I caught my reflection in the window; my cloak's hood was down, showing the world my shoulder length dark blonde hair (because who says boys can't have long hair?), my glasses had been replaced by a pair of goggles that I had gotten from a quick-charge clothing station, which NO ONE can prove I jury rigged just to get goggles with prescription lens, and I had dark bags under my eyes from too many nights spent reading about how to make and modify weapons, which has become a slight hobby of mine.

I had the feeling that if this was the game, it would do the thing when you first meet an important character and there's a cut scene that ends in a splash screen thing with the person's name and a funny little bit of text

* * *

 **Dominic**

 **Nerd powers, active!**

 **(I give him two more weeks, tops)**

* * *

but of course, this is real life, not a video game, so that didn't happen.

I looked away from the window and back to the half-disassembled shotgun on the table, and continued to make small modifications to the weapon.

When the train stopped I looked up to see someone getting on, he was about 5'9, making him an inch shorter then me, his short brown hair was swept back with spikes in his fringe; he had subdermal implants in the shape of the symbol for a military sergeant; he was wearing a brown military jacket with a patch of a skull with a lighting shaped crack running though it, and a bandolier holding an assault rife on his back, green cargo pants and boots that looked like they were made of metal.

He gave me a cocky smile and said "Hey, name's Axton, ten years of Dhal military experience at your service."

* * *

 **Axton**

 **Because every sci-fi series needs an (ex) space marine.**

* * *

Before I could reply, he laughed and said "Wait, how old are you? They letting kids join the Vault Hunters now? Isn't it past your bed time?"

I snorted "'scuse you, mate, I'm sixteen, that's old enough to drink back home; ya'know, if alcohol tasted nice and didn't make you act like an idiot."

"Oh, you're English?" what followed was the worst attempt at an English accent I have every heard "What ho, lad! Top hat and monocles, jolly good!"

The death glare was strong in me "Actually 'mate', I'm from the north, we're less 'top hats and monocles', more 'lager and punching people who buy in to vaguely raciest stereotypes in the throat'."

It was silent for a few seconds before he laughed again "Just testing you, kid. Like I said, name's Axton, 'The commando'."

As you can imagine, the life of a Vault Hunter is one filled with enemies, so most if not all Hunters go only by their first name and a title.

"Dominic" I replied "'The knight', you can just call me Dom."

He leaned against the wall near me and asked "So, what's that you're working on?"

I looked back at the shotgun "It's some old Torque shotgun I've been using; I'm making a few modifications, also trying to work out how Torque guns turn normal bullets into explosives."

"So you like shottys?"

"I prefer handguns, as well as my less advanced weapons." I nodded to my side, where my bow and an old sabre sword I had found were.

We chatted for some time about weapons before the train stopped again.

The man who stepped on was about 6'3, but that is all I can tell of his features, his body was covered in a skin tight suit in shades of black and grey, with what looked like light armour and a red zero on his chest, and his head was hidden in a helmet with a glass face plate.

Axton walked up to him, held out his hand and said "What's up? Names Axton, the kid's Dom; you?"

The tall man didn't take the offered hand, but said "An assassin with/ no equal, no one better/ my name is Zer0."

* * *

 **Zer0**

 **The haiku hitman**

* * *

The assassin brushed past Axton, stopping in front of me and saying "You to wield a sword/ a rarely seen combat style/ we must duel sometime." As if to illustrate this he drew a hilt and pressed a hidden button, causing a katana blade to appear using digistruct tech (which can turn a physical item in to raw data and back again…somehow).

"I would like that, Zer0."

A hologram of a smiley face appeared in front of his helmet. He turned and walked away, but not before I saw something odd; he only had four digits on each hand, not as if he had lost fingers, but like if that was simply how his hands were.

We travelled in silence for some time before stopping again, this time the new passenger was a woman, around 5'7, with blue hair in a bob cut, and blue lipstick; she was wearing a yellow shirt with black and grey patterns on the side, and no left sleeve, a glove on her right hand, baggy blue pants, and yellow and black boots.

She had blue tattoos running down her left arm that resembled Eridien script, marking her as a siren, one of six women born with weird, reality warping powers.

As she stepped on Axton's eyes lit up and he swaggered over, putting on a confident smile and saying "Well hello gorgeous, what's your name?"

She glared at him before saying "I'm sorry, but who are you?"

Before he could open his mouth, I said "Casanova's name is Axton the commando, the ninja is Zer0 the assassin, and I'm Dominic the knight; if he gets too annoying just tell me and I'll electrocute him for you"

"I can do that myself, but thanks for the offer. My name is Maya, the siren."

* * *

 **Maya**

 **Her very presence on this planet raised the average IQ by sixty points**

* * *

As we continued on, I swear I saw something on the side of the train.

Eh, probably nothing.

At our next stop we picked up a Hispanic man around 5'4 tall, with blue hair in a faux hawk and a spiky beard; he was heavily muscled, his orange shirt looked like it would rip any moment; he was also wearing jeans, cowboy boots, a leather glove, and an aura of aggression.

He smiled in a way I could only describe as 'crazed' before saying "What's up, _pendejos_? _Me llamo_ Salvador the gunzerker, when do we get to shoot something?"

* * *

 **Salvador**

 **Call him a dwarf one more time, I dare ya motherfucker!**

* * *

Axton made the introductions before saying "And to answer your question, the next time the kid tells a pun."

I calmly and respectfully said "PUNS ARE THE HIGHEST FORM OF HUMOR, DON'T FUCKING PRETEND THEY'RE NOT!"

At our next stop we picked up a girl around 5'3 and maybe a few years older then me, with red hair pulled into pigtails, and a set of goggles, she was wearing a sleeveless hoodie with a red shirt with a skull on it underneath, she had a fingerless glove and some bracelets on her right arm, and her left arm was cybernetic; she had a red skirt, with a tool belt with a Vault symbol (a circle with an arch in it) hanging on it, black and white striped leggings, and blue sneakers.

She had an arrogant look on her face as she said "'sup, noobs? Name's Gaige, the mechromancer."

* * *

 **Gaige**

 **Robotics prodigy, nerd, anarchist, one of these things is not like the others**

* * *

"Like necromancer?" I asked.

"You are… literally the first person to get that, well done."

I made the introductions before remembering something and saying "Wait, Gaige the mechromancer? I've been listening to your ECHOcasts for sometime; I knew you were on Pandora, but I didn't think you'd join the Vault Hunters."

"Nice to know I've got some local fans."

"On this planet, it's ECHOcasts or county music, and I have some dignity left."

"We're going to get along just fine, blondie."

A blocky, bipedal yellow robot entered the room, scanning us before saying "SIX LIFESIGNS FOUND: ROUGE DAHL CORP SOLDER AXTON, SIREN MAYA, WANTED ASSASSIN ZER0, LOCAL BANDIT SALVADOR, VIGILANTE DOMINIC, UNKNOW SIXTH LIFESIGN, POSSIBLY A STOWAWAY-"

"Technically not stowing away; I just hacked the train to stop at the station and got on."

The sign above the robot, which had Handsome Jack's face and the words 'Welcome Vault Hunters!' fell away to revel another sign, also with Jack's face, but with flames in the background, and the words 'To your doom (nothing personal)'.

"-ALL LISTED FOR TERMINATIONBY ORDER OF HANDSOME JACK."

We scatted for the express purpose of not all dying at once, I yelled over my shoulder "JUST SAYING, CALLED IT!"

Axton threw a box on to the ceiling. It stuck there before digistructing a turret, keeping the loader bots at bay. Then he turned, digistucting a rocket launcher and fired it further into the train.

Maya shielded her eyes from the explosion, before raising her left arm, the siren tattoos glowing as a loader was telekinetically lifted and thrown into a wall with enough force to break though.

Having leapt out a window earlier for… reasons, I guess, Salvador climbed back in though the hole, digistructing two assault rifles, and duel wielding them (without breaking his arms, somehow), mowing down bots as he laughed madly.

On the roof, two Hyperion engineers, wearing yellow exoskeletons, approached the waiting dark figure known as Zer0. One punched at the hitman, only for the metal fist to go though him, revealing itself to be a hologram. As he stood, confused, his partner jerked as a katana blade stabbed though his chest. The other engineer turned in time to see the assassin backflip over the dying man. Midair, Zer0 planted his feet on the engineer's chest and kicked him into the blade sticking out of his partner's body, killing him.

A robot sailed across the train, propelled by Gaige's mechanical fist. She laughed, saying "You call these rustbuckets murder bots? THIS is a murder bot!" she raised her cybernetic limb, digistructing a large robot with no legs and a single glowing eye.

* * *

 **Deathtrap**

 **The worlds must violent bully deterrent**

* * *

The robot flew across the carriage, destroying lesser machines with claws made of energy and a head-mounted laser.

A loader aimed its gun at the Hunters but, before it could shoot, a massive hand came though the window, pulling it out and throwing it off the train. The owner of the hand climbed in; he was a man around 7'5, so muscled I was surprised his skin hadn't ripped, he was bald, wearing a what looked like a cross between a gasmask and a hockey mask, with a piece of leather covering the right eye hole, a harness but no shirt, his right arm had bandages on it, whilst his left arm had metal armour; he had orange pants with metal boots.

The massive man raised a buzzaxe and yelled "I'M HERE TO SHANK AND SMILE!"

* * *

 **Krieg**

 **Pandora's sanest psycho… still crazy, but less so**

* * *

The madman charged into the train, cutting down robots left and right.

Throughout all this, I had been teleporting from one side of the train to another.

 _Blink_

Explosive shotgun rounds blow a robot apart.

 _Blink_

An engineer had his head destroyed by a revolver round

 _Blink_

An arrow entered a robot's eye.

 _Blink_

My blade, covered in electricity, came towards the psycho's neck.

"Wait!" yelled a woman's voice, and I stopped, only a few inches away from the madman's neck.

Maya walked over and said "He saved my life before I got on the train; he said his name is Krieg."

I stepped back and said "Oh, sorry, can't be too careful."

Krieg shouted "THE STORM BRINGER'S TRANSGRESSIONS ARE FORGIVEN!"

After dealing with the last of the loaders, we stood before the door to the final car. We readied our weapons as Axton kicked in the door. We rushed in to clear the place, but froze when we saw what was in it.

A chair spun round, revealing a Handsome Jack dummy. A speaker from inside it came to life, and Jack's voice came through, saying "It's cute that y'all think you're the heroes of this little adventure, but you're not."

The room was full of dynamite.

"Welcome to Pandora, kiddos."

Everything went white.

 _ **BOOM!**_

* * *

 **Well, I've now met the Vault Hunter, the main villain, and next chapter starts the game's story. I'd say this was a productive day, sans the whole blowing up thing.**

 **And now, the notes:**

 **1: I had to guess the date since the time borderlands take place is unknown, so I decided that it shall be five hundred and fifty years in the future (for confused Americans, in England we write it as day-month-year, not month-day-year).**

 **2: I tried to describe the Hunters and represent their personalities as best I could, I think I did OK?**

 **3: Krieg has no official height, so I just said fuck it and made him over seven feet tall.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	3. Of Bullymongs and Claptraps

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder.**

* * *

 _ **Two weeks after arrival**_

 _I was running as fast as I could, teleporting forward as often as possible, but my pursuers weren't deterred._

" _I can tassste you already!"_

 _The Rats, a clan of cannibalistic mutants, were chasing me after I was found in one of there tunnels._

 _I ran into what looked like a crashed spaceship, hoping I could lose them inside._

 _I came to a T-junction and took a left turn, planning to blink down the other hallway and trick them._

 _I turned, concentrating on the hallway and…_

 _Nothing._

 _I hadn't blinked._

 _A rat came around the corner, his face no doubt split in a psychotic grin under his gasmask as he shoot me in the leg._

 _I screamed in pain and fear; my powers weren't working! Why weren't they working?!_

 _The Rats approached slowly, discussing in whispers how to cook me._

" _No! Please! I'll give back what I stole!" I threw a revolver and a shotgun to them "I have money! For fuck's sake, PLEASE DON'T-"_

 _The lead Rat kicked me in the face "Ssshut up! We don't want money! We want your flesssh! Ssso jussst lie down and DI-_

 _Bullets from behind me tore the cannibals apart before they could hurt me more._

 _I turned to see my saver, only to see turrets._

 _A synthesized sounding woman's voice came though speakers on the wall "_ That nearly ended badly, I'm glad I didn't hit you kid _"_

" _W-what? Who are-_

"No time for introductions now kid, we need to get that bullet wound looked at; I'll guide you to the med bay _"_

* * *

"Great, more dead Vault Hunters, Handsome Jack's been busy."

I opened my eyes, groggily looking around for the source of the voice; I saw the others were alive and in as bad a state as me (which, by the way, can be best described as _OW, FUCK, SHIT BALLS, THIS HURTS_ ), we were in some kind of arctic area, in the middle of a snow storm, and there was a small, boxy robot with two spindly arms, a wheel and a single blue eye, digging with a shovel it held in it's clamp-like hands.

The robot noticed us standing up and said "Wait a minute, you guys aren't dead! YES! Now I can get off this glacier! Claptrap, your metaphorical ship has finally come in"

It stood in a manner that looked almost proud, but the effect was lost since it was a 3'4, legless robot "Allow me to introduce myself! I am a CL4P-TP steward bot, but my friends call me Claptrap!"

* * *

 **Claptrap**

 **About as usefully as an completely opaque window**

* * *

"…or they would if any of them were still alive! Or had existed in the first place! Oh, I got something for you guys." He turned and started digging in the snow.

From within the snow he pulled out seven small devices around the size of a 21st century tablet, with a screen and several knobs and buttons.

"Take these ECHO communicators that I totally didn't loot from the wreckage! They come with a class twelve heads-up display, complete with a mini-map!"

We each took one and attached them to our belts. Suddenly, holographic images begin appearing, displayed so close to my eyes that only I could see them; there was the aforementioned mini-map, constructed from a combination of satellite and sonar, and a warning of my injuries (quick update: _I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED A KICK TO THE BALLS_ ).

"Now, come, come, friends! Let's get you inside!" he turned and began… walking? Wheeling? Whatever; he went off into the fog.

"I say we ditch 'em" said Axton " _Crap_ traps are idiots who try to help and blow up half the planet in the process, I say-"

"That we wander off in a random direction, until we bleed out or freeze to death? Greaaaat plan there mate" I said "or, and here's a thought, we could _not_ be idiots, follow the one who, stupid or not, knows this place better then us and _not_ die."

He glared at me and said "who the fuck put you in charge?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

Gaige nodded "Yeah, I'm gonna go with blondie on this one, I just don't think I can commit to being a Gaigeicle at this point in my life."

We started to walk off after the CL4P-TP unit as I said "Anyone else who has a brain, feel free to come along."

Hearing five sets of footsteps behind us was _very_ satisfying.

As we walked, Gaige started to shiver, so I took off my cloak and handed it to her.

She gave me a look, not accepting the cloak, and said "Seriously?"

"What?" I replied

"You're going to go for the whole 'girl is cold so I'll give my coat so she'll like me' shtick?"

"No… I met you like ten minutes ago, not counting the time we were unconscious; I'm not that kind of guy."

She looked at me for a few more seconds before taking the cloak and saying "Shit, you're serious; so what kind of guy _are_ you?"

"One whose mum raised him to respect others and not be a complete douchebag."

She smirked deviously and said "So, you don't think I'm hot?"

I blushed and stammered "W-well, l-like I-I said, we-we just met. I-I-I mean, you're pretty, I'm not blind, but you could be a bitch for all I know."

She adopted a mock angry expression "Oh, so you think I'm a bitch do you?"

"I-wel-I mean-YOU FUCKING KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"

Before she could taunt me more, an image of a pale woman with long black hair appeared in the top of my vision, a voice came from my ECHO, saying " _I'll explain everything soon, but know this: you're alive for a reason, and I… am here to help you_ " then she disappeared.

We were all silent.

"…Did anyone else see that?" I asked.

"Yeah"

"Mm"

"Yes"

" _Si_ "

"Yep"

"NIPPLE SALAD!"

Ahead of us, Claptrap was talking to… 'him'self I guess "Man, this is great! Now that I've met some mighty Vault Hunters, I can finally join the resistance in Sanctuary, take vengeance against Jack for killing my product line, and repair my central processor so I stop thinking out loud!... I wonder what it's like to have a belly button."

We came to a hill with junk piled around it, a holographic sign said 'WELCOME', there was a door leading in to the hill with Christmas lights around it… and what looked like deactivated claptraps.

"Well done!" yelled the yellow and white robot "Your ability to walk short distances without dying will surely be Handsome Jack's downfall!"

He rolled over to the door and entered something on the keypad "Aaaaaaaand open!" he yelled, as a camera scanned him.

The door opened, revealing a tunnel of ice filled with more junk and claptrap corpses.

"Just a little added security. Gotta keep those Bullymongs at bay, or they'll rip your eyes out!" he said, as we followed him into his cave.

Claptrap's place was filled with random junk; as we came in I saw a couch with a rotting corpse on it, a table with claptraps displayed as if they were playing poker, desks covered in oil, and, most importantly, a giant furnace.

We all crowed around the fire as Claptrap retrieved a box full of Insta-health syringes (a medical item that caused your body to heal rapidly… and hurt like a bitch).

"Sorry about the mess" he said, as we injected ourselves with the medical miracle "Everything Jack kills he dumps here – bandits, Vault Hunters, claptrap units… if I sound pleased about this, it's only because my programmers made this my default tone of voice! I'm actually quite depressed!"

"Now, the creatures around here are dangerous, none more so then this Bullymong called Knuckle Dragger – killed everyone I know. Anywho, I keep a pistol in the cabinet over there for emergencies, but in here, we should be perfectly safe!"

In England, we call it 'Sod's Law', in America, they call it 'Murphy's Law', whatever it is, it was in effect, as an ear splitting roar came from outside.

A massive creature, looking like a four-armed ape with mandibles came down the chimney, grabbing Clap before we could do anything; she (from this angle, I could tell it was a she) hung on to the chimney with her left arms, holding Clap with her lower right arm, before using her upper right arm to rip out his eye.

She dropped the screaming robot, climbing back out the top of the cave the same way she came in.

Clap rolled around blindly, weakly saying "The gun. The gun in the cabinet." We went and opened the cabinet, a small amount of money and ammo fell out, along with a Dahl repeater pistol.

ONE Dahl repeater pistol.

There was silence for a second (apart from the sound of Clap bumping into things), before a mad scramble for the gun began.

I stood back, watching for a few seconds before slamming my sword's hilt down on a table, the noise drawing attention to me.

"Guys, if we only have one gun, we should give it to the one who'll use it best."

Axton nodded "For once, we agree! Give me the gun."

I grabbed the gun and handed it to… Zer0.

I smirked at the commando "Sorry, sniper beats soldier here."

The rest of us readied our melee weapons (except Maya, who said she could use her powers to enhance her punches, and Salvador, who said it was guns or nothing), I had my sword; Axton had a tomahawk; Krieg had his buzzaxe (which he had referred to as his 'meat bicycle'), and Gaige had a claw hammer.

Wait a second…

"Gaige, how strong is your cyber arm?" I asked.

"Strong enough to break concrete, why?" she replied.

"Well, your hammer has a wooden handle, so if you don't want to break it, you'd have to hold back; wouldn't it make more since to just punch them?"

"… Ok, is it just me, or is blondie the most logical thinker in this team?"

The mysterious woman appeared again, saying " _once upon a time, four Vault Hunters changed Pandora forever. But their time has passed… thanks to Handsome Jack. Pandora needs new heroes. And I know those heroes can be you seven."_

"Apart from the excruciating pain, this is great!" yelled Claptrap, still blindly flailing around the cave "I've been waiting for a mighty Vault Hunter to help me reach Sanctuary, and now I have not one, not two, but SEVEN Hunters! I will be your wise leader, and you shall all be my fearsome minions!" he laughed.

He bumped into a large door made of junk, before going though what I can only describe as a dog door, with the flap being the front of a CL4P-TP, saying "Just let me get the door and we'll hunt ourselves a Bullymong!"

The door opened; there was little of interest in the room, except for a fast-travel station, a machine that could digistruct a person, transfer them to a different station, then put them back to gather; unfortunately, the fast-travel network could only take you to places that were logged on your ECHO; basically, you could only fast-travel to places you had been before, and since these were new ECHOs, we couldn't travel anywhere yet.

We headed out the backdoor, as Claptrap yelled "Onwards, seeing-eye minions! Let me know if I'm going to run in to anything!" he was going to crash in to a wall, but I didn't warn him; not because I found him annoying, that was somewhat endearing to me; no, it was because he kept calling me his minion.

Someone who listens to as much pop punk as me is no-one's minion.

As he picked himself up from the crash, he said "I'll just assume you didn't see that."

As we walked though the snow, the robot said "Even though Knuckle Dragger blindsided me, I know the way around this glacier. I'll bet we'll find my eye in Frostbite Crevasse."

The woman appeared again and said " _Stick close to the robot – he will help you get off this glacier, and into the city of Sanctuary. That is the only place you will be safe._ "

"Hey, do you have a name?" I asked "It's getting a bit annoying having to keep calling you 'the woman' in my head."

"… _Some call me 'The Guardian Angel'._ " She said, before disappearing.

Angel it is then.

Up ahead, several Bullymong, smaller then Knuckle Dragger but still big, jumped down from the cliffs and charged at us.

"AHHH! I HEAR BULLYMONGS! SIC 'EM MINIONS!" yelled Claptrap "PROTECT ME, SQUIRES!"

"I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW I'M A FULLY FLEDGED KNIGHT, GOOD SIR!" I yelled, like the smartarse I am as we charged towards the alien apes.

The first Bully leapt at me, only for me to dodge to the left, and stab him though the side; another threw a clump of snow and rock at me, so I threw a blast of energy at it destroying it before curving down to hit the primate, shocking it to death.

There was a gunshot, and a Bully fell dead next to me. I turned and tipped an imaginary hat to Zer0, to which he nodded.

After we had killed all the Bullys, Axton asked "Ok, how did you do that, with the lightning ball?"

"Fuck if I know." I said "but it is usefully being your own generator, and water source for that matter. It has its limits though; if I do too much I…'Short out' I guess, and can't use my powers for hours."

"You think you're a superhero, don't you?"

"I'm a nerd who can shoot water and lightning, and I can teleport. I don't _think_ I'm a superhero, I _am_ a superhero."

We continued to follow Claptrap as he said "let's go! If we don't get my eye back, we'll never get to Sanctuary!" Suddenly, an earthquake caused us to stumble, and Clap to fall into the snow.

When he got up he said "Ugh – AGAIN?! Jack' tearing Pandora apart to find the Vault. They say Jack's drilling operations are causing those earthquakes. That, or your mom just got outta bed, ZING!"

"Yeah" I said "Which caused every planet in the universe to tremble in fear of her awesomeness!"

"Ooooh, nice comeback."

"Thanks."

Salvador yelled "How can you get along with that _máquina estúpida_!?"

"We have something in common; we're both annoying."

Angel started to talk " _Annoying or not, you'll need that funny little robot's help to reach Sanctuary, the last bastion of the resistance against Jack, and the only place you will be truly safe. Get to Sanctuary._ "

Before I could stop him, Claptrap fell off a cliff.

"Like I said" Said the stout gunslinger " _máquina estúpida_ ". He leaped off the cliff.

We jumped after him (Thanking the fact that Pandora's gravity was lower then Earth's), finding our robot friend stuck… 'head'first I guess, and more Bullys.

I slashed at one, drawing blood; as it tried to hit me, I blinked behind it and stabbed it in the back; I saw one about to smash Axton, so I hit it with a blast of water, not enough to hurt it, but enough to distract it so the commando could put his axe in its neck; he gave me a nod in thanks.

After this, Krieg lifted Claptrap up out of the snow before unceremoniously dumping him on the ground; the bot said "Many thanks, friend of friends! Onward!"

My ECHO beeped, telling me I had a call; without even letting me see who it was, it answered; the profile picture showed a man with swept back brown hair, and a mask that looked like a normal face, which seemed to be welded on to his face; I had seen enough posters around the place to know he usually wore a long gray coat, with a yellow shirt and a brown waistcoat underneath, grey pants and brown boots.

Handsome.

Fucking.

Jack.

" _Hey, kiddos._ " Said the corporate tyrant " _Jack here – President of Hyperion. Lemme explain how things work here: Vault Hunter shows up. Vault Hunter looks for the new Vault. Vault Hunter gets killed. By me. You see- seeing the problem here? You're still alive. So, if you could just do me a favour and off each other, that'd be great. Thanks, pumpkins._ "

"Better idea" I said "you piss and shit into the nearest toilet, stick your head in, and keep it there until you drown, sound good?"

" _Ok, now I kind of hope you survive so I can force feed you your own larynx_ " with that he ended the call.

"…Well he's a cheery bloke isn't he?"

As we walked into a large, circular area, Claptrap said "Oh! My eye just switched back on! I see a horde of tough-looking minions, and an incredibly handsome robot. Which means that whoever has my eye…" his arms and wheel retracted into his body, giving the impression he was curling into a ball "Is very close!"

On top of a hill was a some sort of crashed barge; Knuckle Dragger, with Claptrap's eye on a rope around her neck, climbed onto a shipping container on top of the barge, roared, then jumped down, grabbed a broken jeep and threw it at us.

* * *

 **Knuckle Dragger**

 **This is gonna hurt**

* * *

We scattered, avoiding the jeep as the giant ape-like monster jumped down to our level; Zer0 went up the hill to get a better shot; Maya lifted it with her Phaselock ability, temporarily stopping it from attacking us as Gaige summoned Deathtrap, the bodyguard bot blasting the primate with its laser; I teleported onto the monster's back, shoving my blade into the ape before the Phaselock wore off and it threw me away.

It jumped up to the barge where only Zer0 with his pistol could reach it.

"Oh GOD! They're coming outta the wall-sphincters!" yelled Clap as smaller Bullymong came out of holes in the wall.

"Thank you for that mental image!" I yelled as I blasted the apes with water.

Halfway though dealing with the small fry, Knuckle Dragger jumped back down; as she did, I saw a familiar shape on the container on top of the barge.

"I've got a plan! Keep them off me for a bit!" I shouted, blinking to the top of the container.

A lone Bully had found its way to the cliff the hitman was shooting from; it tried to punch the assassin, and died confused as a blade form behind killed it.

Zer0, deactivating the cloaking/hologram device nicknamed 'Decepti0n', said "I'm out of ammo/ how unfortunate this is/" he posed to jump off the cliff "Time for some melee."

Krieg ran throughout the arena, slashing left and right with his buzzaxe; a Bullymong leapt at him, only for the madman to grab it and slam it into the floor, screaming "NEVER INTERRUPT ME!" as he tore out the primate's throat.

I stood on the container looking down at my teammates fighting before saying (for reasons of epic oneliner) "Time for Zeus and Neptune to work to together…" I aimed my bow (which had been blown up here by the explosion on the train) at the water I had covered the ground in during the fight against the smaller Bullys "with some help from Artemis and Apollo." the arrow cackled with energy as I yelled "Everyone, move NOW!"

The arrow hit the water just as the others jumped out of the way; the Bullymongs all died in a surge of electivity.

"Woohoo!" yelled Claptrap "If you would retrieve my eye for me, I'd be grateful. Oh, and I apologize for saying 'wall-sphincters.' I say that a lot when I'm frightened."

Gaige grabbed his eye from Knuckle Draggers corpse as the robot continued "Now we just gotta find someone to put it back into me. Much as I'm sure you'd like to jam your fist into my skull, optic surgery is best left to professionals - my pal Hammerlock in Liar's Berg can fix me up! Allons-y!" he turned and started to roll up the hill.

I blinked down to Gaige and said "He… does realize you're a robotics engineer, right?"

"Never mind that! That was _BADASS!_ You took out all those guys with one arrow!"

"Indeed" agreed Maya "You saw a part of the environment you could exploit, and used it to your advantage. Though I must ask, why did you need us to distract them?"

"Needed time to put as much energy in the arrow, without breaking it, as I could."

"Oh, and uh, by the way dude?" Gaige snickered "You left you ECHO running on an open channel, we all heard your oneliner."

I slumped and said "why am I doomed to never be cool?"

Axton walked over and snorted "oh big deal, kid can shoot a bow, it's not that impressive, I could do it."

"Oh yeah?" I shoved my bow and an arrow into his hands "Prove it, shoot that corpse." I pointed to a Bully corpse that was about half way across the crevasse.

He smirked and aimed the bow. _Holding it diagonally, hasn't bent arm to prevent string from hitting it, hasn't pulled the string back enough, and don't get me started on his footing._

The arrow didn't fly far enough to hit it, but even if it did, his aim was off.

"What?! Come on!"

I snatched the bow back off him "And that, mate, is the difference that a year of weekly archery classes makes."

When we caught up with Claptrap, he was standing in front of the barge "Liar's Berg's on the other side of this Hyperion barge. What say we cut through it, chum?" he turned and began typing on a keypad next to what I think was the cargo bay doors "HA! This door's Hyperion tech – child's play! Aaaaaaand OPEN!" a camera scanned the steward bot, before heavy locks slid in place over the door.

An automated voice said in an overly cheery tone " _Intruders detected. Locking door._ "

We all glared at Claptrap as he said "Well, it was nice knowing ya! I hear getting eating alive by Bullymongs isn't such a bad way to go."

Angel spoke, saying " _Let me get that for ya. Executing phase shift._ " A strange noise was heard as the door opened.

Claptrap yelled "Yes! I knew I'd get it eventually!"

" _You're welcome! Perks of being an Artificial Intelligence. I'm networked into almost everything in this planet_." Said Angel; the container had lockers that opened to reveal a small collection of weapons " _It's a long way to Sanctuary - please take whatever you need for the journey ahead._ " We all went and grabbed some guns.

"This way to Southern Shelf, minions - let's go!" said Claptrap as we were upgrading our arsenals "…or, not! We'll go at your pace! I'm obviously the brains of this operation of course, but you're Vault Hunters with the brawn. And the guns. And the power of sight. Which is exactly what you want out of your minions, really. That's like, three of the top four things one generally wants out of a minion. You'll figure out the fourth when the time is right. The fourth is pizzazz."

"Oh I have that in droves." I said, putting my Hyperion pistol in it's holster and loading my Jakobs shotgun; Axton had Vladof assault rife and a Hyperion shotgun; Zer0 had a Dahl sniper rifle and a Vladof pistol; Maya had a Tediore laser gun and a Dahl SMG; Salvador had two Bandit made assault rifles; Gaige had a Hyperion SMG and a Bandit pistol, and Krieg had a Bandit shotgun and a Jakobs assault rifle.

We walked into the frozen wasteland in the direction that Claptrap said Liar's Berg was in, better armed and ready for whatever may come our way.

Hopefully.

* * *

 **And thus, we get to the game itself! What adventures await our merry band of misfits and madmen? Only time will tell!**

 **On to the notes:**

 **1: I plan to do flashbacks at the start of chapters to show what I've been doing in a three months between my arrival and joining the Hunters.**

 **2: Since most NPCs in Borderlands have no official height, I'm just going to have to guess, as I have done with good ol' Clappy here.**

 **3: I am of the small group of people who like Claptrap, please don't stone me to death for this!**

 **4: I've always been bothered by Gaige's melee attack; I mean, she says in her back story that her arm can break concrete, so why does she have a hammer, WHY?!**

 **5: in case you were wondering, I do actually go to a weekly archery class.**

 **6: I gave us all some guns so that we didn't have to rely on that shitty little pistol for any longer.**

 **7: Yes, I know lasers were not in the second game, but come on! 2 takes place AFTER tPS and I think we all know that the only reason they didn't have lasers in 2 was because Gearbox hadn't thought of it, so lasers and cryo weapons will be in this.**

 **8: Someone asked for a better description of me/Dom, it will be in the next chapter, I couldn't find a good place for me/Dom to randomly reflect on his appearance, but I have an idea for next time.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	4. Liar's Berg

**Trigger warning for non-graphic murder**

* * *

 _ **Three weeks after arrival**_

 _A convoy of trucks drove though the desert, protected by members of the Bloodshot bandit clan, on their way to deliver some special merchandise to the Bloodshot HQ._

 _What merchandise you might ask? Why, slaves of course!_

 _Naturally, this didn't sit well with a certain elctrokinetic archer, which is why an arrow hit the diver of the lead truck._

 _The truck –which had been transporting bandits, not slaves, I'm not stupid – swerved and crashed into a rock next to the road as I continued to shoot at the others whilst I still had the element of surprise._

 _Soon enough, the bandits spotted my position on top of a rock formation and begin firing at me. I teleported to another place where I could shoot from, but they found me much quicker this time._

 _When I ran out of arrows I charged in, firing my shotgun at the slavers before teleporting away. When I was out of shells, I pulled out my revolver just in time to shoot a psycho, who was about to try to carve my face off._

 _Eventually it was down to just me and a marauder, her outfit was less worn looking, suggesting she was higher ranked then the others, and she had a sabre sword clutched in her hand._

" _Got some fuckin' nerve, don't cha' kid?" she said "attacking the Bloodshots like this, you must have a death wish."_

" _Maybe; maybe YOU have a death wish, and I have a life wish, all a matter of perspective, really." I said, transferring my revolver to my left hand and drawing my machete with my right._

"… _What?"_

" _Don't know myself, sounded cool though."_

 _We changed, blades clashing together when we met. She went for an overhead slash, only for me to block, I raised my gun to shoot her, but she jumped back, the sudden lack of her blade causing my to stumble. When she went to kick me I raised my hand to blast her and-_

 _Nothing._

'You do not have enough mana to cast this spell _' I thought grimly, as the bandit's boot hit my face._

 _I hit the ground, my weapons flying from my hands. The marauder put her foot on my chest and held her sword against my throat._

" _Any last words for me to carve on to your flesh?"_

" _Yeah, this: if you find who killed me, tell her that I respect her sword skills, but she's a bitch who needs to die in a fire, signed, dead guy."_

" _OK, fuck you, you English piece of shi-" that's when her head exploded._

 _I pushed her corpse away before it could fall on me and looked around for the shooter, but I couldn't see anyone._

 _I grabbed my gun and machete and, after a moment's consideration, the marauder's sword and the sheath off her belt._

 _I went to all the cages, smashing the locks and freeing the slaves within before I saw a figure approaching the convoy._

 _I walked towards the one I guessed shot the bandit. As I got closer I drew my gun._

 _Hey, can't be too careful._

* * *

"This way!" Shouted Claptrap. We had been walking for hours towards Lair's Berg, and it had turned to night… sort of. Technically it was still bright out, but Pandora had a day/night cycle that lasted ninety hours, so it was really ten in the afternoon, EST (Earth Standard Time)

We came to a cliff that overlooked a small town near the coast as Clap said "Keep your wits about you, minion - this glacier's run by a bandit named Captain Flynt. The jerk kept me as his torture plaything for a few months. We played games like 'dodge the blowtorch', and 'don't get dunked into the pool of acid.' I was really good at the first one."

I was about to say something, but chose to face palm instead when the steward bot rolled right off the cliff.

We jumped down after him, dealing with some Bullymongs at the bottom of the cliff before our ECHOs began broadcasting a message from, lo and behold, Jack.

" _Attention, people of Pandora! Handsome Jack here, offering a million bucks to whomever brings me the heads of the Vault Hunters who just arrived in Liar's Berg. Oh, and I'm still offering a reward for Roland, the mass-murdering leader of the Crimson Raiders. Good hunting, bandits!"_

"Great," said Axton "now we have a bounty on us! Every two-bit gunman on the planet will be after us."

Before I could reply, a voice, broadcasting on an open channel, came though our ECHOs again, the profile picture showing a metal helmet with two large horns, the face underneath hidden apart from two glowing red eyes. The username read 'Captain Flynt'.

" _A MILLION BUCKS?! Alright, boys - this is Captain Flynt! I want you to find that Vault Hunter and bring 'em to me! NOW!_ "

I glared at the part of my vision that profile pics appeared when I got a call and said "OK, one: how does this guy have glowing eyes? I want glowing eyes! Two: did this idiot just broadcast that on an open channel? Really? Three: Horns on his helmet? Seriously? The second he gets in a close range fight someone could just grab them to hold him in place and stab him, VIKINGS DIDN'T HAVE HORNS ON THEIR HELMETS, PEOPLE! And last and least: Flynt with a y? Is that Scandinavian? Nerd rant done."

All eyes were on me as Maya asked "you're… not normal, are you?"

I shrugged "Never have been, Never wanted to be, normal is boring; what kind of weirdo wants to be normal?"

We approached the gates for Liar's Berg as Claptrap was banging on them "HEY, HAMMERLOCK!"

" _Spectacular!_ " said a high class southern English accented voice though our ECHOs " _First Captain Flynt's bandits attack, then Claptrap shows up! I must have been horrifyingly cruel to puppies in a previous life to deserve this kind of treatment. I say, Vault Hunters - could you kill Flynt's men for me?"_

Suddenly Krieg charged at the gates, smashing them down as he screamed "IT'S TIME TO BLEED!"

"Well, that's one way to/ open a gate, we should go/ and help the madman" said Zer0.

We ran into the small town, finding the psycho firing his assault rifle wildly towards some bandits with one hand as he ran at them waving his buzzaxe.

I fired my shotgun at a nearby psycho, reloading the one-shot weapon quickly before firing at another.

" _Got a proposition for ya, Vault Hunters_ "Said Flynt" _You give up, we'll just shoot ya in the head. It'll be quick, clean, and a hell of a lot less painful than what Handsome Jack'll do to ya._ "

"Yeah, no, we're good."

Axton stood near the centre of town shooting his rifle at some marauders inside a house, he smirked as he said "You fellas meet the missus?" before throwing his digistruct turret in one of the windows. "Sorry, boys, I've got turret syndrome! Get it? 'Cause of the turret...? Sorry."

"I RESPECT YOU SLIGHTLY MORE" I yelled "WHICH ISN'T MUCH, BUT STILL!"

" _What is WRONG with you boys?! Just kill those skaglicks so's we can get our reward!_ "

Salvador fired his rifle, missing the bandit he was aiming for. "Screw this aiming bullshit!" he took out his other rifle, screaming "DOUBLE THE GODDAMM FUN!" as he mowed down bandits.

"Oh no" said Claptrap "I HEAR BULLYMONGS!"

I looked up, seeing two holes in the ice wall on the southern part of town "I got it!" I yelled, grabbing some grenades off a dead bandit. I teleported near the holes and threw the grenades in, caving in the tunnels, before shooting the three that got out with my pistol.

" _DAMMIT!_ " yelled Flynt, when all his men were dead " _This ain't over, grinders!_ "

"Hey, Hammerlock!" yelled Claptrap "Since my minions just saved your town, you wanna do your bestie Claptrap a favour and repair my eye?!"

Hammerlock sighed " _Yes, I suppose I am in your debt now, aren't I? Come to my shack, and I shall restore Claptrap's sight. First, I shall shut off the electrical fence for you._ "

As we came to the fence, I saw it was still on.

" _Please stay back, Vault Hunters, let Claptrap go first._ "

"err, Claptrap? You might want to-" Axton covered my mouth before I could finish my warning.

"I knew Hammerlock would come around eventually. Me and him are like two peas in a pod! Two bullets in a mag! Two cannibal midgets in a fat guy's ribcage!" Claptrap hit the fence, convulsing for a few seconds before collapsing.

" _Apologies, but when Claptrap speaks, I feel my brain cells committing suicide one by one. I shall be out directly._ "

The door to the house on the other side of the fence opened. The man who walked out was dark skinned and had a large, bushy moustache and a wide brimmed hat with one side pinned up; he was wearing glasses with the right lens broken, revealing a cybernetic eye. He had a faded white dress shirt under a brown waist coat; the shirt's right arm had been torn off, showing a cyborg arm. His dress pants were also faded white, with two glowing boxes on his belt; his left foot was in a brown boot, whilst his right was, again, cybernetic.

He (literally) marched out of the house before saluting and saying "A pleasure to meet you, Vault Hunters. I am Sir Hammerlock"

* * *

 **Sir Hammerlock**

 **Hunter. Gentleman. Scholar**

* * *

"at your service."

"Alistair!" I said "Good to see ya, mate."

"Dominic! It is good to see you too, chum! You joined the Vault Hunters?"

"Yep, initiation was more… explosive then I thought, but I survived, so it's all good. What are you doing out here anyway?"

"I came out here to research the Bullymongs for my almanac" he said, as he walked over, turned off the fence and opened the gate "but Captain Flynt's men trapped me on this glacier. Many thanks for disposing of them, by the way. To survive a direct run-in with Handsome Jack AND defeat Captain Flynt's bandits? Unheard of! I'm headed to Sanctuary, myself, from what I hear, the Crimson Raiders there could use some heroes like you lot."

"Wait, wait, wait" said Gaige "you two know each other?"

"Yeah" I said "Alistair saved me from bandits awhile ago, that was also when I got my sword, I'll tell you about it some time."

"Now, if you could hand me the robot's eye, please?" said Hammerlock, holding out his hand. Gaige gave him the eye, and he knelt down, placing the optic sensor in its socket before screwing it in several times "now, I need only connect this to this, and…" he punched Clap's eye back into place "That should do it!"

"Ha ha!" yelled Claptrap, 'standing' up "I am aliiive!"

"Oh dear, he's talking again" Alistair muttered.

"Minions! Now I've got my eyesight back, and you're all far uglier than I remembered! Time to join up with the Crimson Raiders in Sanctuary! This glacier's full of nothing but murderers or jerkbags, like that Hammerlock dude!"

"I'm standing right here, 'dude'." Hammerlock shook his head before saying "Now that Liar's Berg is clear, I might as well turn on the main power, this town's full of things that may be of use to a group of go-getting slayers of men like yourselves."

We followed Hammerlock though the small town as he spoke "I see our fearless leader Jack is looking for you. Charming fellow, isn't he? Spouts drivel about bringing peace to the frontier, then shoots unarmed men, women and children like it was going out of style. Bah! I'm spouting exposition again, aren't I? Apologies!"

Alistair turned on a generator, causing lights to turn on all over town. He turned and said "Now, as payment for your services, I want you to have these shields" he tapped a button on his ECHO, digistructing seven small, disc shaped objects.

We clipped them on to our belts, causing forcefields to appear around us.

"There is a Quick-Change Station over there you wish to change into some more weather appropriate clothing."

Taking him up on the offer, we went to the station, a large boxy device with a holographic display, showing a stick figure like you see on the doors of public bathrooms, the head changing to have mohawks, devil horns, hats and other stuff, and the body would change from male to female, then back again every few seconds.

The Quick-Change Stations where machines that digistruct clothes that you own, or make small edits to them, like changing the material.

Axton's outfit was a thicker version of his normal one, but in winter camo with a hood and face mask; Zer0 changed his suit form black and grey to winter camo; Maya had a thick yellow parka, jeans, and boots; Salvador put on a duster coat over his normal clothes; Gaige had a leather jacket, jeans, and boots; and Krieg simply wrapped his upper body in furs from various Pandoren animals.

"Your turn, Blondie" said Gaige, handing me my cloak back.

I stepped up to the machine, causing a hologram of me to appear, in all my 5'10 glory, I'm not quite muscular, but in my time on Pandora, I've become… 'athletic' I guess, but I'm still pale as balls. The dark circles around my eyes (which were green, darkening to brown near the pupil) told me I needed sleep.

I changed into a greenish-brown long sleeved top and combat boots (that I may-or-may-not have looted from a dead bandit.), but kept my jeans, before donning my now fur lined, winter camo cloak, with the dragon symbol now a light blue.

"I don't know about you guys" said Axton "but I'm beat. Howzabout we rest up here before deciding what to do next?"

There was a general murmur of agreement before we all scattered throughout the small town, finding houses to hole up in.

Not me though.

I found the darkest corner I could find before sitting and putting my face in my hands.

"Uhhh, you all right, dude?"

I looked up to see Gaige, looking concerned.

"Um, yeah?" I replied, with Shakespearian wit and eloquence.

"Didn't look that way from here, what's up?"

"How to put this… I hate people. More specifically, I hate talking to people. Unless it's one of my friends, I'm horrible at the whole 'social' thing. I can sort of, ya'know, fake it for a bit, but then I have to go scream into the void for a while."

She looked thoughtful before sitting down next to me and saying "Ok then, what's your favourite band?"

"What?"

"You said you not good at talking unless it's to a friend, right? You seem cool enough, so I'll be your friend, but I'm going to need the juicy details, like you favourite band."

"uhhh, Fall Out Boy?"

"21st century punk, huh? Good choice, mine's Godless Vision. Hobbies?"

"Gaming and, more recently, weapon making."

"Favourite game genre?"

"Roleplaying."

"Could you make me a pair of SMGs that I could duel-weld?"

"If I had the right tools, sure."

We sat there for an hour, talking in some snow covered alley, before saying good bye and I went to look for a shack to spend the night in.

* * *

That night, as I read a book, cursing my inability to get to sleep at a reasonable time, my ECHO pinged with an update.

* * *

 **ECHOcaster [** Mechromancer **] has made a post.**

* * *

Mechromancer was Gaige's moniker on the ECHOnet (basically the internet of the future), and I had been listening to her ECHOcasts (basically podcasts) since a few week after my arrival.

Out of boredom and random curiosity, I clicked play.

* * *

" _What's up to my twenty-one thousand subscribers, Gaige here, coming at you from a frozen shack in God-damn-noweheresvile, Pandora._ "

" _So, what's be going on with me? Well, I got blown the fuck up, fuck you Jack, fuck Hyperion, and a fuck you to all the suited douchebags out there._ "

" _On the plus side, I'm now officially a Vault Hunter, DON'T hold your applause, clap all you want._ "

" _Now, I know I'm awesome and I could take on every bandit on this shithole at once by my self-_ " there was a whirring in the background " _Ok, ok! By my self with DT, buuut I'm working with a team._ "

" _So first off, there's Axton. Ex-army dude, MAJOR creep vibes from this guy, pretty sure if he knew I was eighteen he would be all over me, but once again my youthful looks save me from a creep who isn't a complete creep._ "

" _Then there's Maya. Now, at first I thought she just had some ink, but when she THREW A BOT THOUGH THE GOD-DANM WINDOW WITH HER MIND, I was fairly certain she was a siren. She's also probably the smartest of us, but I'm not sure how to feel about the fact she talks like some fed-with-a-silver-spoon rich-bitch._ "

" _Next up is Zer0. Not much to say about him, one of those 'sits in the corner brooding' types who says nothing about his past. He's got a cool cloaking device though._ "

" _Salvador… in four words? Napoleon complex on steroids. Dude is crazy, pretty sure I saw him look at a dead bandit and licking his lips, please remind me not to die near him._ "

" _If Sal is crazy, I don't know what to call Krieg. It's like all the inmates in a nuthouse inbreed and Krieg is the giant screamy result, but at least he's on our side…I think…_ "

" _And last but not least, Dominic. He's pretty cool, a punk like yours truly, and smart to boot, but kind of a dork. So far, he's the only one I would say is my friend. Don't know what's up with the whole teleporting, lightning and water throwing thing, and he says he doesn't know either. I get the feeling he's hiding something, can't figure out what though…_ "

" _So anyway, I'm going to try not to get frostbite in my sleep, Gaige, out!_ "

* * *

In fairness, I am hiding something, but if I went 'hey, so I know we just met, but I'm from another dimension where you're a fictional character' I don't think it'll go over well.

Sighing, I turned over and went to sleep, hoping tomorrow will be simple.

Who says I can't be unrealistically optimistic?

* * *

 **Skyrim has riverwood, Fallout 3 has megaton, and Borderlands 2 has Liar's Berg. Also, Yay for one of two English people in Borderlands.**

 **And now for something completely different, by which I mean the notes and a Monty Python reference:**

 **1: I will be adding female versions of bandits, because why not. For those wondering, female marauders dress the same as male ones, and female psychos also dress the same, with some covering their chest with leather straps (and no, I'm not making them wear so little for perverted reasons, male psychos run around without a shirt all the time, so why would the female ones, who are just as crazy, be different?)**

 **2: Fun fact: Vikings really didn't have horned helmets. If they did, some one could just grab them like I/Dom said. The myth was started by Scandinavian artists in the 19** **th** **century, and popularised by Wagner.**

 **3: So now you know roughly what I look like. If you see me in the street, please don't punch me to show what you think of the fic.**

 **4: It's true, I'm pretty anti-social. I prefer the company of animals and fictional characters to most people, with the exception of my family and my few friends.**

 **5: Yes, I like FOB,** _ **Phoenix**_ **is my jam.**

 **6: Just thought I should mention, Godless Vision isn't a real band, I got the name from a punk band name generator.**

 **7: I added in Gaige's ECHOcast to sort of show a different person's views on the Hunters than mine/Dom's.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	5. Flesh rippers

**Trigger warning for non-graphic murder and treats of forced** **prostitution**

* * *

 _ **Six weeks after arrival**_

" _Hey, you! Fucker in the green cape!"_

 _I looked up from the book I was reading; I had stopped in some town to trade and grab something to eat at some bar whilst I read before I was so rudely interrupted._

 _I locked eyes with a large man who looked like the very effort of identifying the colour of my cloak was physically tiring to him. "It's a cloak, difference. Capes are just for decoration; cloaks can be pulled around you for warmth."_

" _I don't give a shit! You're that guy, the one the Anarc clan have a bounty on!"_

 _The Anarcs… that weird bandit clan from my first day on Pandora. I had tried to learn more about them, but all I have learned was that they were founded about a year ago when their leader (who I have only heard referred to as 'The Burned Queen') murdered the leaders of several small clans and united them under her reign._

 _I have also been disrupting their shipments and operations, so it wasn't much of a surprise that they put a price on my head._

 _I closed my book and put it back in my bag (I should get an ECHO at some point, for the in-built digistruct module if nothing else), before standing up and saying "And let me guess, you're going to try to kill me and get the reward money?"_

 _He laughed "Not just me, dipshit. If you pissed off the Queen this bad, you must be trouble, so…" He turned and yelled to the rest of the bar "Hey! This shit's got a bounty on 'em!"_

 _That was about the time every lowlife in the place stood up and started grabbing weapons._

 _Well, shit._

 _The only reason I have survived this far was by using the element of surprise and my powers (in other words: cowardice and cheating)._

 _And I was all out of juice._

 _Fuck._

 _I kicked over my table and ducked behind it as the bullets started flying; taking out my revolver, I waited till there was a break in the fire before popping out and shooting one of the men before hiding again._

'Fuck. Fuck. Think, you idiot. Fuck. _'_

 _Looking up, I saw some sort of chandelier made of scrap metal hanging by a rusted chain._

'Perfect _'_

 _I shot the chain, and the chandelier crashed down on top of a group of thugs._

 _Whilst the others were distracted (keeping in mind we're in the middle of a fire fight, to get distracted like that I have to assume their intellect was somewhere between 'rock' and 'fish') I ran up and grabbed the body of the thug I shot earlier and held it in front of me as a shield._

 _I gunned down several more of the idiots before they could muster enough brain power to notice me, leaving only two thugs (one of them the rude twat who started this whole debacle)._

 _They looked at me, then the bodies of the others, then each other, then me again._

" _uhhhh…" said the rude one._

" _Run?" I suggested, like the helpful, slightly blood-stained gentleman that I am._

" _Run." He agreed, before the two of them legged it._

" _Nice shootin' kid" I looked behind me and saw an older man with a sheriff's badge._

 _I eyed the carnage around me and said "Oh, shit! Look, there is a perfectly good excuse for why I shot up this place!"_

 _He chuckled "eh, don't worry 'bout it kid. Those idjits have been causing trouble 'round these parts for awhile now."_

" _Oh, well, glad I could get them out of your hair, then."_

" _Ya know, kid, I could give you a couple of pointers for the next time you get in a fire fight, stuff that could save your life."_

 _I accepted the sheriff's offer, staying in town for a few days before leaving, smarter and more able to defend myself then when I came._

* * *

We were stocking up on ammo in Liar's Berg after running some errands around the Southern Shelf; we raided an old Crimson Raider safe house for shields, grabbed some Bullymong fur for Alistair and Claptrap, earning Krieg a Torgue shotgun and Zer0 a Jakobs sniper rifle, and…well…

* * *

 _"Would you like to do battle with a midget riding piggyback on a Bullymong? If the answer is yes, please proceed to the Southern Shelf and defeat Midge-Mong for me. If the answer is no, you are sad, and I've no desire to speak with you further."_

" _THIS" I yelled back at Hammerlock "IS LITERALLY THE BEST JOB I HAVE EVER BEEN OFFERED!"_

* * *

That was a fun job, explosions happened, fire occurred, good times.

Now we were ready to go after Flynt, all we needed now…

was, frankly, directions.

"So," said Alistair "how are you enjoying Liar's Berg? This town used to have a spectacular amount of hustle and/or bustle before its denizens fled to Sanctuary to escape Jack's army. Most of them, anyway; Captain Flynt's men killed anyone who stayed."

"Is it just me, or does this planet get more shit the longer you spend on it?" I asked. "Anyway, the others and I are heading out to avenge the people of Liar's Berg; do you know where Flynt's base is?"

"I believe Claptrap might have the answer to that. I do hope you survive, not only because it means that Captain Flynt won't, but also because you are one of few people I have met on this planet who is actually a decent person, friendship, ho!"

I chuckled "I survive this mate, then you owe me twenty quid and chips; if I die, you get to loot my stuff, deal?"

"You, good sir, have yourself a deal."

I approached the steward bot and said "Do you know where Flynt and his men hang out?"

"Yep! You see, Flynt and I, we had a gentlemen's agreement in the past. I give him the loot from the bodies Jack ditches in the glacier, he promises not to torture me for hours at a time, then he does it anyway. But that ends today! We're gonna take him out, steal my ship back, and sail to Sanctuary!" the robot turned, shouting "Let's go this way!" as he led us to the town gates.

My ECHO started ringing, it was Flynt.

" _Here's what's gonna happen, Vault Hunters. My first mate Boom Bewm is gonna kill ya, Jack's gonna pay us, and I'm gonna play hopscotch in your chest cavities!_ "

After… _That_ , the bandit lord hung up.

"Be careful taking down Boom Bewm." Said Clap "He's one of the 'Ripper' clan. As in, Fleshripper. I don't have to tell you why they're called that."

"Is it becau-" I started.

"They're called that because they rip people's flesh off."

Well, duh.

As we walked though the snow outside the Berg, my ECHO came to life, spewing forth a voice that made me want to smash the damn thing, as well as the sound of our least favourite tyrant chewing something.

" _Hey!_ " Said Handsome Jack" _How - ah, these pretzels suck… So, how's your day been, buddies? We haven't really talked much since I left you all for dead. Hey, you think you'll freeze to death out there? Nah, probably not. The bandits'll get you first. My day? It's been pretty good. Just bought a pony made of diamonds, because I'm rich. So, you know. That's cool. 'Kay, bye._ "

Krieg took the opportunity to voice his opinion "THE HANDSOME ONE'S PLEASURE POKER IS EASILY HIDDEN BY HIS FLESHY SHINY MOBILE CHAIR!"

"That… is one way of saying he's compensating." I said, amused by the madman's outburst.

We came to a small group of houses with some bandits hanging out near them.

Maya fired her laser, a shotgun-like blast of energy emitting from the gun; the beams of light carved though the enemy, setting some on fire.

The Siren noticed a barrel labelled 'gasolin- DOND DRENK', she lifted the barrel with her Phaselock power and threw it in front of the bandits right as one of them fired.

The result was…messy.

When we were done, Claptrap said "Minions, what have you DONE?! These were human beings with lives and families and - I'm totally kidding. SCREW those guys!"

We continued to follow the robot towards what looked like an outpost for the Fleshripper clan, complete with their logo on banners hanging on the walls: an anchor with the top half replaced with a dragon head (which, admittedly, is kinda badarse).

Of course, the calm moment had to be ruined by a certain ego-maniac.

" _I'm rackin' my brain trying to think of a name for that diamond pony I bought. I was gonna call it 'piss-for-brains' in honour of the Robin Hood wannabe, but that just feels immature. Maybe… 'Butt Stallion'? Nah, that's even worse. Tell ya what, I'll give it some more thought._ "

I glared at thin air and said "Ok, is-is this git trying to make me hate him, 'cause its working."

We reached the outpost, finding that they had gone for the whole 'we don't need a gate to keep people out' style of defence.

Maybe they were trying to psych us out.

It didn't work.

Wanting to test something out, I grabbed Zer0's arm and teleported to the roof of one of the two building in the small outpost.

The hitman looked around in shock, an exclamation mark appearing in front of his mask.

"And now, you are instantly in position for sniping; you're welcome!" I said, hiding the fact that I have _literally never took anyone with me when I blink before and for all I knew I could have trapped him outside of reality_.

Maybe I should have thought more before I tried it.

Eh, it worked out.

I blinked back down, digistructing my shotgun into my hands and blasting an unaware marauder in the back.

Gaige summoned Deathtrap, using the bot as cover as she fired wildly with her SMG, the robot firing lasers from its one eye.

I got a better look at it than I did on the train: it looked like it was pieced together from scrap metal; its right arm was thinner then its left, ending in a four digited hand, whilst the right had two digits, both with energy claws coming off them. It was covered in markings, including a skull and a bone on its left arm, a hazard symbol near the thruster where the leg would be on a human, tally marks on what looked like a chair on its left shoulder, and a heart with a padlock though it on the left side of its chest.

When all the bandits were dead, Gaige un-digistructed (is that the right term? Un-digistruct?) the bodyguard bot back into the storage space in her mechanical arm for charging.

Claptrap activated the controls for a drawbridge separating the outpost to what I guessed was the path to Flynt's base, only for two psychos covered in blood with blue mohawks to rush over the bridge, holding grenades above their heads as they ran at us.

However, this was easy rectified by two shots from Axton's rifle.

" _I should probably clarify_ " said Jack, hacking his way past having to make me press 'accept call' once more " _the diamond horse I've been telling you about? It's not a sculpture, or anything. It's a living horse that actually happens to be made of- actually, I'll just go get her, Butt Stallion! Here girl! Say hello._ " I heard a horse whine " _Butt Stallion says hello._ "

I was silent for a second before I said "you know, I feel I should question this, but with all the weird mutant humans on this planet- and the whole universe for that matter- the concept of a horse made of a non-organic material isn't that far-fetched."

We walked over the drawbridge and found that it ended in a drop down.

"ahh, boss battle."

"What?" said Axton.

"Basic video game logic dictates that if you are presented with a point of no return, there is going to be a boss, especially if you were just given a large amount of supplies."

He glared at me "That's stupid, why the fuck are you trying to put game logic in real life?"

 _Oh if only you knew._

"Because, that's why."

We jumped down, landing on what looked like a frozen cargo ship, Claptrap looked over to the other side of the ship and excitedly said "It's Boom Bewm!" then he started screaming.

On the other side of the ship, a humongous artillery gun sat with a bench umbrella on it. A marauder in a yellow jumpsuit with metal plates attached and a welding mask climbed on top, before shouting "Light the fuses, bitches-" He struck a pose, as a midget (as is the term used on Pandora, although I believe that elsewhere the preferred term is 'little person') in a grey jumpsuit, also with a welding mask and metal plates, and a jetpack, flew past, striking the same pose.

* * *

 **Boom**

 **And his brother Bewm**

* * *

"-I'm ready to BLOW!" said the one in yellow, (Boom, I guess) as he sat in the seat for the massive gun.

 _Well, shit._

We all dove behind the boxes spread around the ship's deck that looked like that bandits had been using as cover, and I threw a bolt of energy as covering fire.

Axton fired a few shots from his rifle, but was forced to duck as the cannon unleashed what was basically pure death in his direction.

" _Hey kid!_ " he yelled over the ECHO " _Could you teleport up on to the back of that thing?"_

"At this distance I would need a clear line of sight and a few seconds to calculate the angles if I don't want to end up in a wall, neither of which I'm going to get!"

" _WELL ONE OF YOU_ IDIOTAS _BETTER THINK OF A PLAN!_ " yelled Sal, charming as ever.

I looked around for something to use, before asking "Hey Gaige, just how good at following orders is Deathtrap?"

After a minute or two of discussion (which basically boiled down to 'have you got a better plan?') Zer0 begin sneaking towards the cannon, hiding behind cover when he needed to let his cloaking device recharge, as I blinked over to a length of rope near the edge of the boat, dodging the grenades being thrown from above by Bewm.

I grabbed the rope and blinked over to Gaige, waiting for the signal from the assassin as the others took pot shots at the bandit brothers.

" _Now!_ " Said Zer0, as he came out of hiding and jammed his katana into something important to the cannon, distracting Boom.

Gaige digistructed DT and I put the rope in its right hand; Maya Phaselocked Bewm as Gaige told the bot "Tie up that midget with the jetpack!" the bodyguard bot whirred in acknowledgement before floating over to the airborne bandit as I handed the other end of the rope to Krieg.

When the rope was tied, Krieg pulled with his left hand, dragging the little person to him as his raised his shotgun in the other hand and yelled "IT'S A BAPTISM OF BLOOD!"

Torgue guns fire explosive rounds.

Krieg's description was… _accurate_ , shall we say.

Across the ship, Boom yelled "You-YOU BOOMED MY BOOM BRO! I'M BOOMING GOING TO BOOM YOUR BITCH ASS BOOMS!" he turned back to Zer0 just in time to block a swing with the armour on his arms.

The hitman jumped back, preparing to strike before the bandit took out a grenade launcher and fired the explosive, hitting Zer0 right in the chest.

Boom turned to fire at us as I counted in my head.

3…2…1…

 _BANG!_

I smirked as the now headless bandit fell to the floor. "Just saying," I said, as the assassin uncloaked from on top of the cannon, still aiming his sniper rifle at Boom's corpse. "called it."

* * *

Captain Flynt watched the fight on the security cameras from the relative safety of his base.

He watched his first and second mates pin down the vigilante treasure hunters, and the kid in the green cape throw a blast of energy, probably from some elemental tech in his gloves or something, then saw the red-head girl digistruct a robot as Boom was detracted, tie a rope around a glowing, immobile Bewm and pull him down to get shot by the psycho.

He smiled behind his helm as Boom got revenge by blowing up the ninja wannabe, before looking furious as he turned out to still be alive and blew his first mates head off.

 _How?! How the FUCK did these fuckwits beat them?!_

Flynt watched back the footage before noticing something wrong.

He watched the same few frames three times to make sure he was seeing this right.

That fucker in the green cape was standing in one spot.

The air around him seemed to twist and flicker in an unnatural way as his body was covered in lightning.

And then he was several feet away.

He stared at the screen for a good minute, before pulling up the footage from other outposts he knew the Hunters had hit, seeing the feat of teleportation repeated several times, as well as throwing lightning and water, he wasn't wearing gloves.

… _What, the, fuck._

After some thought, he grabbed his ECHO and entered a number.

The person on the other end picked up after a few seconds " _The FUCK do you want, Flynt?!"_ came the voice of a young woman with an odd, indiscernible accent.

"Boss, I know you said not to bother you, bu-"

" _YOU'RE GOD-DAMN RIGHT I TOLD YOU NOT TO BOTHER ME! All I need you to do is watch over the shipments I send down south, what the FUCK could you possibly need?!"_

"It's…just watch this." He sent her the video footage of the Hunters and what the green guy did.

The woman was silent as she watched, then for a few seconds after before a man groaning was heard in the background.

" _DID I FUCKING TELL YOU YOU COULD MAKE NOISE?!"_

A frantic sounding mans voice was heard " _N-no! Please! I-I pay you on time next time, I swear! Just, please, let me go!"_ the man screamed as the sound of fire was heard.

" _YOU FUCKING BETTER! IF YOU DON'T, I'LL SELL THOSE PRETTY LITTLE GIRLS OF YOURS TO THE WHOREHOUSE, GOT IT?!_ "

" _Y-yes! Thank you! I won't be late next time!_ " Flynt heard the man run away.

 _Can't say I blame him for running, it's what I'd do if she was this pissed._

" _Flynt_ " Said the woman " _You are going to kill these little bitches, but try to get as many as you can in chains, I could use guys like this, and the fucker in the cape HAS to live long enough to meet me, got it?_ "

The pyromaniac captain learned back in his chair, seeing the Fleshripper flag on his wall.

And next to it, a black flag with a red anarchy symbol made of flame.

"I'll get it done, _boss_." He said, scorn dripping off his voice.

" _You better, or I'll have to remind you why your little clan are part of the Anarcs now._ " replied The Burned Queen as she hung up, filling Flynt with fear as he relayed the orders to his men.

* * *

 **Flynt is a pyromaniac who has tortured dozens, if not hundreds of men, women and children over the years, and not only survived on Pandora, but was ruthless enough to make others just as crazy as him fear him to the point of following his orders.**

 **And he's scared.**

 **Let that sink in.**

 **Here come the notes:**

 **1: Since most of my readers are non-English, I shall translate the English slang for you, 'a quid' is a pound (English currency), what Americans call 'potato chips' we call 'crisps' and what they call 'fries' we call 'chips', 'legging it' means running away, and 'git' and 'twat' are just insults.**

 **2: Fun fact! Jack's pretzel line was completely unplanned, Dameon Clarke (Jack's voice actor) was eating during a recording session, and the pretzels were so bad he just had to say it, I guess (this isn't even the only one of Jack's line that were adlibs).**

 **3: My head-canon explanation for mutants in borderlands (like nomads and goliaths) are that centuries of space travel and exposure to all sorts of weird radiation caused damage to human DNA, allowing for strange changes that can be as small as Maya's hair being naturally blue to…well…** _ **the goliaths**_ **.**

 **4: And here we meet my OC villainess, The Burned Queen! Why does she want to meet me/Dom? How did she make a madman like Flynt fear her? Who IS The Burned Queen? Expect to learn more of this terrifying sociopath as we go on!**

 **5: I split the 'Best Minion Ever' mission in half so that this chapter wouldn't be eighty seven bazillion words long; sorry if this annoys any of you.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	6. Pyromania

**Trigger warning for non-graphic murder**

* * *

 _ **Eight weeks after arrival**_

 _Lightning crackled in my fingers as I stood in the room I had set aside in my spaceship home for testing weapons and my powers._

" _Electrokinesis test number…one hundred and six: effects of electricity on robot power core."_

 _So far, I have discovered that the electricity and water made by my powers was slightly different from the normal kind; the water was cleaner then anything I could get from lake water poured into a purifier, and the electricity made some machines work better then normal._

 _In front of me was a Loader bot I had obtained though completely legal means that most certainly have nothing to do with the recent raid on a Hyperion Work Experience Faculty (*cough* slave labour camp *cough*)._

" _Loader bot is currently inactive due to lack of power," I said into the audio recorder on the table in the back of the large room (this used to be a fancy cruse ship… maybe this was a ballroom?) "ideal outcome is the robot reactivates and is smarter and more combat effective; maybe I can have it guard the place when I'm away."_

 _I turned to the bot and examined it for any damage I may have missed; Loader bots have a T-shaped torso with double jointed legs, long arms that reach down to its lower knees and fairly human-like hands; they have no head, instead having a single eye on the right side of its torso, but even without a head, they were still around 7'0._

 _Satisfied, I walked slightly away and fired a blast of energy at the exposed core coming out of its head._

 _The core glowed of a few seconds before retracting into the body and the bot started to stand._

" _LO-LO-LOADER BOT ACTIVATED-VATED."_

 _The combat droid looked around the room before setting its sight on me._

" _SCAN-SCANING… NO USER PROFILE DETECTED, PLEASE IDENTIFY."_

" _Dominic; I'm your new owner."_

" _PROCESSING… PROCESSING… PROCESSING… CONFIRMED."_

 _Huh, that worked._

 _It looked down at its hands "THIS UNIT LACKS WEAPONS, PLEASE RECTIFY."_

 _Oh, right, yeah._

 _I walked over to a room I had been using to store weapons (think it used to be where the bands stored their instruments) and grabbed an LMG I got from a bandit who said I would have to take it from his cold dead hands._

 _I did._

 _I gave the combat bot the weapon and said "Right, so I need you to-"_

" _THIS UNIT," it said "DOES NOT FOLLOW THE ORDERS OF BANDITS." It raised the LMG and said "FIRST LAW PROTOCALS DISABLED."_

 _Fuck._

 _I blinked behind a table and flipped it for cover._

" _PROCESSING… TARGET HAS SOME FORM OF TELEPORTATION DEVICE, ADJUSTING STRATEGY."_

 _My palms filled with water as I gathered energy and yelled "Help! Help would be good!"_

"Are you kidding!? _" came the reply from the intercom "_ This is hilarious! Times like this make me wish I could eat popcorn! _"_

" _Screw you!" I yelled, popping out of cover and shooting a blast of water at the robot's eye; it simply raised its left hand to protect its exposed weak spot, whilst aiming its new gun at me and firing._

 _I ducked down behind the table before realising, by way of many splinters, that a wooden table might not be the best cover against a god-damn LMG._

 _I blinked behind a pillar behind the bot and watched as it continued to fire; when the table was completely obliterated, it began searching for me._

 _I looked around for something to help before noticing the open door to the store room._

'Need a distraction… _'_

 _I blinked to the farthest corner of the room and hid behind some rubble before yelling "Hey jerk-face! You have the face of a jerk!"_

 _Scathing wit, thy name is Dom._

 _Bad insult or not, it got the bot's attention, bringing it over to me; it rounded the corner…_

 _And saw a scrap of paper with a smiley face and the words 'have a shitty day!'._

 _That I definitely don't carry everywhere for just this kind of situation._

" _Hey!" I yelled from inside the weapon room "If I may quote a movie I've never seen…"_

 _I lifted the Hyperion laser gun and aimed at the bots eye "Say hello to my little friend!"_

" _PROCESSING… SHIT."_

 _I fired, the recoil sending me flying back as the railgun-like blast tore the Loader apart._

 _A stood and placed the gun back on the shelf, before walking back to the recorder in the back of the room._

" _Test…_ Technically _successfully."_

* * *

"He sure said 'boom' a lot." Said Claptrap, staring down at the corpse of Boom "Looks like he dropped a grenade mod; be sure to equip it!"

I reached out to grab the small device, only for the massive hand of Krieg to cut me off.

"MINE MINE MINE MINE MINE!" yelled the madman, clipping the device on to his belt.

"Hey!" I protested "I saw it first!"

That's… when something weird happened.

I saw something… _change,_ for lack of a better term, in Krieg's bloodshot eyes, like a large portion of his aggression was just gone.

The psycho leaned over and whispered (something I was sure he couldn't do) "Just let the big guy have it, kid, easier that way."

"W-what?" I asked, confused.

"I said-" suddenly, the aggression came rushing back, and he yelled "FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS BLEEDERS!"

He did this, might I add, with his mouth right next to my ear.

Ow.

Seemingly oblivious to what just happened, Clap said "Those change the way your grenades behave, if you find the right mod, you can throw grenades that home in on targets, or spew flame, or split into a bazillion tinier grenades! They're badass!"

We followed the steward bot before stopping in front of a ginormous gate made of scrap metal.

"Raggin' fraggin' locked gate!" said the bot, banging on it in an attempt to open it "Ooh, idea! Minions, one of you get on that cannon!"

"ME! ME! I SHALL BE THE FIRER OF THE PARTY CANNON! RUN OUT THE GUNS!"

Three guesses as to which large, explosives obsessed madman said this.

After Gaige and I had fixed the damage caused by Zer0 jamming his Katana into it, Claptrap said "Just blast this gate down, but DON'T do it until I'm out of the way! Understand? If you shoot the gate now, that could cause serious damage to me! So don't do that! I'm just standing here to show you the area you should shoot after I move away, which I will, once I am totally convinced you understand the instructions I am relaying to you! Do you understand? I know it's kind of complicated, but just stick with me! When it's okay for you to shoot this gate with the cannon, I'll say something like, 'SHOOT THE GATE WITH THE CANNON, NOW!" But that was just a test. You didn't shoot the gate when I said that, which is good. 'SHOOT THE GATE WITH THE CANNON, NOW!' Also another test. You're doing me pro-"

Krieg slammed the fire button.

Explosions ensued.

Claptrap screamed

I face-palmed.

Bandits charged through what was left of the gate, screaming for blood; I upholstered my pistol and yelled "Everyone behind the cannon! Krieg! Don't stop firing!"

The big guy was so very happy to carry out this order, as the rest of us fired on the bandits that slipped through.

After we had dealt with the veritable horde of outlaws, we continued on past the gate and into the Fleshripper stronghold.

On top of a small mountain of ice sat a humongous Viking style ship with a dragon shaped bow, complete with a flamethrower that periodically spewed fire from its mouth, below this lay a shantytown built into and around the mountain replete with the usually bandit decorations: banners with the clan symbol, hanging corpses, an arse-ton of bullet holes, that sort of stuff.

" _Soooo,_ " came Claptraps voice from my ECHO " _I might have tried to stage a mutiny on Captain Flynt's ship before the flash-freeze... Which explains why his men are currently beating the crap out of me. Right, guys?_ "

" _SHUT UP!_ " replied a gruff voice.

" _Okay!_ " came the cheery answer.

We made our way to the entrance to the shantytown; along the way, a certain bandit lord felt the need to call us.

" _So, Claptrap's got some new friends, huh? I gotta say. I miss that little hunk a' junk, the noises he made when we set him on fire…_ " he sighed in the same way you would when thinking of a fond memory" _brings a tear to my eye._ "

"Hey Flynt," I asked "can I ask what's with the horns?"

" _Uhhh, I'm a Viking, did you MISS the ship!? Idiot._ " With this, he hung up.

I was silent for a few seconds before saying "Before, I was going to kill him because he's a terrible human being. Now? Because he's the worst kind of idiot: the kind that thinks they're smart."

We entered the bandit town the only logical way: by firing a shit storm of bullets and grenades in every direction.

Krieg ran headfirst into enemy fire, smashing through their cover and revealing the latest addition to his arsenal: Boom's grenade launcher, which he fired directly at his feet, surviving only because of his (now heavily depleted) shield.

A small group of marauders fired at the roof of a nearby hut, where the haiku hitman was sniping from. Zer0 fired only one shot back, hitting a grenade on the belt of one of the marauders.

Remember kids: always store your explosives inside your ECHO; do you WANT to be a bloody smear?

Throughout this all, recorded massages from Flynt played from speakers in the town.

* * *

" _Captain Flynt again, asking if anyone's seen my Claptrap unit. Little bastard escaped a few months back. I've had to use Heaton as my backup torture doll._ "

" _AHHHHHHHHHHH!_ "

Flynt sighed " _Just ain't the same_ "

* * *

"At _the sound of Heaton screaming for his life, it will be two-thirty._ "

" _WHY?! OH GOD, WHYYYY?!_ "

" _See you again at two thirty-five!_ "

* * *

" _A few of your have asked me why I keep playing these pre-recorded messages on a loop. Well, I've got a great answer for you: a red-hot poker to the eye! Isn't that right, Claptrap?_ "

" _IT WAS JUST A QUESTION, MISTER FLYNT!_ "

" _That's Captain Flynt to you!_ "

* * *

Guessing that last one was an old one.

As we cut a bloody swath through the town, we came across a vending machine with the words 'Dr. Zed's Meds etc.' on it, with an image of a medicine bottle with cartoonish limb and the face of a man with black, neatly combed hair and a surgical mask on it, flipping a pill in the air like a coin and leaning on an eye dropper filled with blood.

Maya went up to the vending machine, prompting a holographic display of wares to appear as a speaker played the recorded voice of a man with a southern American accent. " _Welcome to Doctor Zed's Portable Clinic! What can I get for ya?_ " Maya a bought a large number of vials of Insta-health before closing the menu " _Next time you're bleedin' to death, just think: Doctor Zed!"_

"As the only one in the team with any real medical knowledge, I feel it would be best if I carry the medical supplies. That being said, however…" she brought up the holo menu of her ECHO and pressed some buttons; everyone's ECHO pinged with the message that Maya had sent us each a vial "Keep those in case you're in trouble and I can't reach you."

We continued on into the town, before being once again being intercepted by a call from the bandit warlord.

" _Got a proposition for you fuckwits. You, and Clappy as well, be our personal torture buddies for life, and we won't kill ya. Think it over. Take yer time._ "

"Oh, wow," I said, with not a hint of sarcasm, no siree bob "how will I ever decide?"

As we fought another group of Rippers, I could hear Metallic thuds and the sound of Claptrap's voice from behind one of the huts.

"Ow! Guys, you don't HAVE to beat me up, we can talk this through, right? Here, I'll do it for you! 'Hey Claptrap, how are you?' Oh, I'm fine – I kinda wish you wouldn't beat me up, though. 'Why?' Cause it really hurts! 'You make a good point, Claptrap, but beating you up makes US feel really good!' I know, guys, but it makes ME feel really bad! 'But Claptrap, you're a robot - are you even capable of feeling pain?' Well, uh, no, I guess I'm not. 'So, if pummelling you makes us feel good, and DOESN'T hurt you, there's no harm in us continuing to do it, right?' ...Actually, now that I've talked it all out. I think you guys have the moral high ground, here. Pummel away!"

We rounded the corner to find a bunch of bandits beating the ever loving shit out of Claptrap.

I decided to perform the tasks of 'save the robot' and 'be nerdy trash' at the same time by taking out my pistol and saying, in my best attempt at a southern drawl, "it's high noon!" before firing at the heads of the bandits.

It would have been impressive.

If I didn't fuck it up and miss two of them.

Zer0 fixed it, using the power of stabbing.

"Suck it, Flynt! My new minions are bonafide badasses!" yelled the robot as he stood up.

He followed us as we went further into the shantytown, slaughtering its inhabitants.

…Okay, when I say it like that it sounds bad.

When we reached some stairs, Claptrap stopped, proclaiming "Rrrrragh! Stairs?! I can't climb stairs! Let's find another way up!" he looked around for a more accessible way up, and spotted a platform attached to a crane on the ship.

"Oooh, a crane! Find the controls!"

As we walked up, I said, half-joking "You know, they really should have, like, a ramp or something. Are they not thinking about disabled people?"

"'Course they are!" Said Salvador "About how delicious they are!"

Aaaah, Pandora. Just when I think you can't get worse, you pull shit like this.

We made our way up the scaffolding on the side of the ice mountain, blasting bandits and looting their stuff until we reached the side of the ship, finding a part of the hull that had worn away and let us inside.

The door to the rest of the inside was blocked but there were some small cargo containers. When I went to open one, Sal stopped me, before pulling out one of his rifles and firing three rounds into every one.

When I opened one, there was a now dead bandit inside.

"How did you…?" I asked.

"I'm Pandoren." Was the only explanation

We looted the small store room before continuing up and finding the controls to the crane.

"Take your time, old pals!" said Claptrap, as I tried to work out which lever made the crane go up "Standing on immobile platforms is one of my top three favourite pastimes! Right behind dancing and crying."

GOD DAMN IT CLAPTRAP! DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE BY FEELS!?

I pulled the right lever out of dumb lu-, I mean skill and knowledge, bringing Clap up to us as he yelled "Ahahahhaha! I ascend!"

We found a way onto the deck of the ship, finding it was filled with vents, and there was a throne on top of the cabin on the far side.

"Come on out, Flynt!" yelled the steward bot "Your Claptrap unit has returned!"

On top of the cabin, a man, around 7'3 and heavily muscled, wearing a yellow and gray, robe-like covering that went down to his knees, with spikes and random bits of metal all over it, metal boots, and a stupid, _stupid_ helmet with glowing red eyes, holding an anchor in one hand and a flamethrower in the other, came into view.

"It's our new torture dolls, boys!" he yelled, before thrusting his anchor into the air as the vents on the deck begin spewing fire "Let's turn up the HEAT!"

* * *

 **Captain Flynt**

 **Burn, baby, burn**

* * *

We fired (pun intended) at Flynt as he jumped down to the deck and ran towards us with surprising speed, followed by other bandits.

We took cover from the barrage of bullets behind the various crates and mechanical devices (which presumably served some purpose in making the ship and/or flame vents work) on the deck.

"Sal!" I yelled over the ECHO "You and Axton handle the small fry!"

" _Since when were you in charge!?_ " yelled the commando.

"We don't have time to argue! Just do it! Maya, lock Flynt down! Gaige, get DT out and behind cover, I have a stupid plan! Krieg, look at me!" the madman turned to look at me from his cover; I pointed at Flynt.

"Be Krieg."

The plan spring into motion: Sal, Axton and his turret lay down a hailstorm of lead (or whatever bullets are made of these days) on the approaching bandits as Flynt was lifted into the air and Krieg charged at him with his buzzaxe spinning.

I blinked over to Gaige's cover to find DT floating next to her.

"Where's the maintenance panel?!" I yelled.

"The back! Why?!"

I opened the panel and find the power core.

"Simple, really: we're going to kick this shit to eleven."

I sent a massive burst of energy into Deathtrap's core, causing the bodyguard bot to spasm before settling down.

"What did you do to my bot!?" asked Gaige, sounding like I would by killed slowly if I didn't give a good answer.

"Watch." I said before turning to DT "Go! Wreak havoc!"

Deathtrap looked to Gaige for orders, ignoring me.

"Kill the bandits!" she yelled.

The massive robot flew into the air and fired its laser at a group of bandits.

And made them explode.

Gaige looked on in shock as Deathtrap slaughtered bandits with speed and strength it previously wasn't capable of.

"Blondie?"

"Yeah?"

"We're best friends now, and there's nothing you can do about it."

"Cool."

As Gaige and I begin shooting at the bandits, Krieg fought Flynt buzzaxe to anchor; the two locked weapons, trying to gain an upper hand on their opponent.

"Fuck are you doing with these Hunter assholes?" asked the pyromaniac "I see that look in your eyes, you're just like me."

Krieg headbutted the warlord, causing him to stumble back as Krieg taunted "I'LL SLICE OFF YOUR EYELIDS SO YOU CAN WATCH THE END!"

The psycho charged forward, grabbing one of Flynt's horns (YOU SEE?! YOU SEE WHAT I'VE BEEN TALKING ABOUT?!) and slashing at his stomach.

Flynt dodged back, leavening his helm in Krieg's hand and revealing the face of a lightly tanned man with a bald head and burn scars, and glowing red, crudely made cybernetic eyes.

"Not this time, dipshit!" said Flynt, swinging his anchor like a hammer and hitting Krieg with enough force to knock him back…

right on to one of the vents.

Flynt pulled out what looked like a detonator from a pouch on his belt and yelled "BURN!" as he pressed it.

Krieg's screams filled the air as fire spewed from beneath him.

"KRIEG!" yelled Maya, her marks glowing as she tried to pull him from the raging inferno, only to have to dodge a blast of fire from Flynt's flamethrower as the warlord turned his attention to her.

The siren backed up to where Gaige and I had been shooting from, and I turned and begin blasting water to counter the fire, steam rising from where the streams met.

Flynt continued to fire as he approached, stopping when he got close, I channelled my power to fire a bolt of lightning to knock him back and-

…

…nothing.

I was out.

I tried to draw my sword, but wasn't fast enough to dodge as the pyromaniac swung his anchor and sent me flying.

Flynt un-holstered a bandit-made, bright red pistol with red lights on it, and said "Alright! Anyone who stands down gets to live as a slave! If you don't, things get _real_ fun for m-"

Something flew out of nowhere and hit Flynt in the side. He screamed and reeled back, turning to face who ever threw it.

What hit him, you might ask?

A flaming buzzaxe.

There, standing in the direction the axe came from, breathing heavily and still burning, but somehow alive, was Krieg.

"HOW!?" yelled the warlord "HOW ARE YOU STILL FUCKING ALIVE?!"

Krieg laughed darkly, before pressing a button on his ECHO, causing the axe stuck in Flynt's side to digistruct back into it and then to Krieg's hand.

"GOD-FUCKING-DAMMIT! ANSWER ME!"

"I" said Krieg, raising his axe and pointing it at Flynt "EMBRACE THE FLAME!"

The mad mutant charged at Flynt, slashing at him with renewed strength, everyone of the warlord's attacks were blocked, whilst Krieg's strikes whittled down the pyromaniac's shield.

Flynt raised his anchor to block an overhead slash from the madman, only for it to be shattered, along with his shield, when the swing hit his shoulder.

Flynt stumbled back, but Krieg didn't let up, hacking and slashing brutally at the bandit lord.

He fell to the ground, looking for his lackeys for help, only to see that, as he and Krieg fought, we had destroyed his small army of marauders and psychos.

"I can't wait" said Krieg, approaching the prone, heavily wounded form of the pyromaniac "to taste your lungs."

"No!" cried Flynt, dragging himself away from the madman "You…you don't f-f-fucking get… to kill… me…"

He had dragged himself onto one of the vents.

"Only I…" He said, lifting the detonator above him "have… that… RIGHT!"

He pressed the button, and the flames consumed him.

When the fire died down, there was nothing recognizably human left of Captain Flynt.

All was silent before Claptrap yelled "BOOYAH! You're the most fearsome group of warriors this glacier has ever seen!"

I limped over to Krieg and patted him on the shoulder "Thanks for the save, mate, I think you deserve these." I handed him Flynt's flamethrower, pistol (which had the name _Tinderbox_ scratched on the barrel) and helmet.

He took the weapons, but handed me the helm back, saying "The burning man's brain bucket serves a greater purpose in the hands of the stormbringer then in the poop train conductor's."

"I'll… take that as 'you keep it'. In that case, can I borrow your axe for a sec?"

He handed me the axe.

And I cut off the stupid horns.

After healing ourselves and looting the battlefield, we made our way though the cabin, finding a map of part of the continent and two flags, one Fleshripper, one Anarc.

"Flynt was an Anarc?" I said out loud.

"A what?" asked Axton.

I shook my head "Bandit clan I've gotten in trouble with a couple of times, didn't know they had an outpost this far south though…"

We looted the cabin, and walked out the back, finding a small ship attached to a crane.

"There she is!" yelled Claptrap "Me mighty vessel! Lower her into the water, ye salty dogs!"

We worked to lower the ship, before setting sail in the direction of Sanctuary, and a safe haven against Jack and Hyperion.

* * *

 **The first of many obstacles on our path has fallen, but the treat of Jack remains, so we must solder on to our next adventure!**

 **And now, the notes:**

 **1: Anyone who's played as Krieg or seen 'A Meat Bicycle Built For Two' knows what's up with his random moment of clarity. This is basically just my way of showing Krieg's 'inner voice' without having to switch to his perspective.**

 **2: I decided to let weapons like grenade launchers and flamethrowers be wieldable by the Hunters. Why? Because, why not.**

 **3: I haven't even played Overwatch (yet) and I still make references to it like the trash I am.**

 **4: In case you didn't get it, Krieg surviving the fire and suddenly being stronger was because of his 'Hellborn' skill tree, which focuses on making him stronger when he gets set on fire.**

 **5: Just mentioning, how I'll be doing skill trees is that as the story progresses, the characters will get all their skills over time, so by the end, everyone will have ALL ranks of ALL of their skills, but currently have only the first ranks of all their tier one skills.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	7. The Road To Sanctuary

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder.**

* * *

 _ **Ten weeks after arrival**_

" _GET DOWN!"_

 _The red-armoured soldiers ducked behind cover as a barrage of rockets flew over their heads._

 _The leader of the squad spoke into his ECHO "This is Lt. Foster broadcasting on all frequencies! We're pinned down by the Anarcs and-"_

"Awww. _" came a mocking woman's voice from the communicator "_ Isn't that just so PATHETIC! Am I right, guys? _" the lieutenant heard howls of laughter coming from the enemy position._

"Buuuuut, then again, I can't blame you; what kind of person DOESN'T cry for help when Morgana is on their tail. _"_

 _Foster's eyes widened in fear as the woman said her name; every member of the Crimson Raiders had heard about the infamous bandit hacker '/\/\0R94N4', but the fact she was a member of the Anarc clan was news to them all._

'Feels like these guys want to recruit every bandit with a reputation _'_

 _Suddenly, his ECHO's HUD begin glitching, the light blue changing to blood red as the caller ID showed Morgana's symbol: a pentacle with a stylised M inside it._

"Maybe I could send your wife the video of the boys MURDERING you and MUTILATING your corpse! Hell, I should send your kids a copy to! They need to learn how things work on this planet, at some point, and who better to teach them then good ol' Morga- _"_

"Lass, _" I said "_ eat a Snickers; you get psychotic when you're hungry. _"_

"A-wha-who-who the fuck are you?! How did you get on this frequency!? _"_

"Now _,_ now. Let's all calm down and listen to some music. _"_

 _Guitar strings sounded out from all the radios and ECHOs on the battlefield._

'I walk a lonely road. The only one that I have ever known. _'_

"What?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!? SOMEONE FIND THIS CLOWN AND RIP OFF HIS FUCKING BALLS! _"_

'Don't know where it goes. But its home to me and I walk alone. _'_

"Now that's not very nice, is it? I just wanted to share what, in my opinion, is some of the best music in the world, and you're threatening me with bodily harm for it? How rude! _"_

'I walk this empty street. On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. _'_

"GODDAMN IT! WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! _"_

'Where the city sleeps. _'_

"Me? Ha. I'm just an idiot in a green cloak, who's seen far to much shit on this planet to just sit down and accept it. You really want to know?"

'And I'm the only one and I walk alone. _'_

"I'm Dominic, and I'm standing behind you. _"_

"What!... NO YOU FUCKING AREN'T YOU LYING BASTARD! _"_

"Made you look! _"_

 _I blinked behind the bandit cover and engaged in the art of inserting large, sharp pieces of metal into the flesh of degenerate ne'er-do-wells._

 _In other words, I started shanking bitches._

 _As I committed grievous acts of vigilantism, the Raider soldiers watched on, surprised that I was not eating several bullets simultaneously._

" _Who the fuck's this kid?" asked one._

" _Think I've heard about him, some vigilante type." said another._

" _Well whoever he is, he's stealing all the kills. Why are we just standing here?"_

 _The rebel fighters moved to help me as I shot, stabbed, electrocuted, and, in one case drowned, the Anarcs._

 _When all the bandits were murderlated, the lieutenant walked up to me and said "Kid, I haven't got a clue why you helped us, but thanks."_

 _I shrugged "Don't worry about it; way I see it, sane people on this shit hole of a planet need to stick together." I then had a sudden thought "Hey, did any of you kill Morgana? 'Cause I didn't."_

 _Foster's ECHO rang; when he answered it, before saying "It's for you." And moved the holographic speaker (which I assume is some form of hard-light construct) from his ear and 'handed' it to me._

 _I moved it to my ear and said "Dominic's morgue, you stab 'em, we slab 'em, Dom speaking."_

 _"_ I will fucking rip off your dick _"_ _came Morgana's voice_ _"_ and force-feed it to you. Then, I'm going t- _"_

 _I moved the speaker away from my ear and said to Foster "Hang up, right now."_

 _He smirked, and did just that._

" _Don't you just hate wrong numbers?" he said._

" _I know, right?"_

" _So, normally, I'd ask if you wanted to join the Crimson Raiders, but I get the feeling the military life wouldn't exactly make good use of your skills."_

 _I nodded "Yeah, I'm not one for all this 'body armour' and 'following orders' malarkey." ("The hell is a 'malarkey'?" I heard one of the soldiers say.)_

 _The lieutenant reached into a pocket and pulled out a flyer, which had a picture of Handsome Jack (dear god that guy's a piss-head) with his arms spread out in front of a mountain with a Vault symbol on it._

" _How long have you been on Pandora, kid?"_

" _Nearly three months."_

" _Then you know by now that Hyperion's not the good guy in all this. Jack's gathering potential Vault Hunters on a train to Opportunity in two weeks, which means one of two things: he's going to recruit them and make them Hyperion agents, or he's going to kill off his competition."_

" _Annnnnd?"_

" _And we don't want that. Now, Jack's only going after people with a reputation of being dangerous, and you fit that bill."_

" _Wait wait wait, I have a reputation?"_

" _Dude," chimed in one of the solders "You're a teleporting, lightning and water throwing vigilante in a cloak who's dumb enough to fight Anarcs and Bloodshots on a regular basis."_

 _Touché._

" _So," continued Foster "I'll bet you got an invention, or can apply to get one before the deadline. What I'm asking is this: if you really want to help people on this planet, help these guys out, send them to us, hell, maybe join if you feel like it."_

 _I frowned, thinking about the message a Hyperion solder had delivered to me a few weeks ago, before taking the flyer from the lieutenant's hand "I'll think about it."_

" _That's all I ask."_

 _As I walked away, I took out a small walky talky (good for communication, but I still want an ECHO) and said "Hey."_

"That was so cool, wish you could have seen that bitch's face when I patched you through! _"_

" _Cut the music."_

"Why? _"_

" _Maybe… it's time I stopped walking alone."_

"… Dude… that was cheesy as fuck. _"_

" _I know, I couldn't think of anything better."_

'My shadow's the only one that walks beside me. My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating. Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me. 'Til then I walk alone... _'_

* * *

I've always found something oddly calming about night time and water, even on Pandora.

I sat on the bow (that's the front bit) of Claptrap's ship, enjoying the calm nature of the scene before the others wake up and the calm was ruined by Axton and Salvador trying to out manly each other, or Gaige and Maya got into another shouting match that I was fairly certain was only because Gaige thought she talks too fancy to not be a 'rich-bitch'.

My ECHO pinged, and a pop-up told me I had an email from someone called 'pH0Rward5la5h8aCk5la5hf0RwArD5lA5h8AcK5lA5h' (Which, after running it through a leetspeak translator I found on the ECHOnet, translated to 'forwardslashbackslashforwardslashbackslash').

I opened it.

* * *

 _ **From: pH0Rward5la5h8aCk5la5hf0RwArD5lA5h8AcK5lA5h**_

 _ **Subject: 9OOD morN1N' sH17-h34D**_

 _D3Ar357 d0M1N1C,_

 _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_ _phuXOr Joo!_

 _JooRZ,_

 _/\/\0R94N4._

 _p5: pR07Ip! 8EGGIn' PH0r mErCY 4nd/0r dE47h ju57 m4ke2 m3h W4N7 70 hUR7 j00 m0rE :)_

* * *

 _ **From: 'TwasADarkAndStormyKnight**_

 _ **Subject: re: 9OOD morN1N' sH17-h34D**_

 _That many 'fuck you's seems excessive. Also, how did you get this email? This is a new ECHO._

* * *

 _ **From: pH0Rward5la5h8aCk5la5hf0RwArD5lA5h8AcK5lA5h**_

 _ **Subject: re: re: 9OOD morN1N' sH17-h34D**_

 _1 H4V3 My w4y2, l1TtL3 80Y :)_

* * *

When I tried to reply again, it said that the address was no longer in service.

"Well," came Zer0's voice from behind me "they seem… nice, so/ what are you doing up this/ early, Dominic?"

I turned to find the hitman leaning on the wall of the cabin behind me. "Oh, hey Zer0, just enjoying the atmosphere, responding to emails from psychotic hackers, that sort of thing, you?"

"Mediating, I/ find that it helps me to think/ about things clearly."

"The others?"

"Asleep."

"A-HA! That wasn't a haiku!"

"True."

"So are you going to stop doing them now?"

"No."

"Wait, so you can say one or two syllables outside of haiku or something?"

"Yes."

"I will figure out your secrets one day!"

"Won't."

About an hour later, we were all awake and were about to dock on an icy beach, when Claptrap started speaking from the loudspeaker on the cabin.

"We're near Sanctuary, buddies. You go on ahead - tell the locals what we'll require for my 'welcome back' party. I'll stay here and give 'em time to get what we need. Number one: ladies, obvious. Number two: dudes, but hideous ones, we're talkin' morbidly obese, we're talkin' body odour, we're talkin' acne scars. The ladies'll take one look at these uggos and BAM! I start lookin' pretty good! Suddenly, it's not, 'ew, get away from me you pervy little robot, you're creeping me out, why are you crying? I didn't even know robots could cry. Look, if I give you a hug will you stop crying? Alright, but keep that disc tray inside, OH GOD WHAT IS THIS, MOTOR OIL?' it'll be more like, 'Claptrap, rescue me from these uggos, and hump my leg!' Which I will! Three:…"

It was at this point that we docked, and we all got the fuck outta there.

We approached a path between two plateaus that led up to the top of one of them. As we did, a car drove over a bridge connecting the plateaus, before the bridge exploded.

Someone named with the ID 'Corporal Reiss' begin broadcasting on an open channel " _Sanctuary's off limits! You Bloodshots can stay in your hole!_ "

A car full of bandits used the remains of the bridge as a ramp to jump the gap, one of them answered him, also on an open channel " _I SEEEEE YOUUUUU!_ "

Reiss sighed " _Awesome. Why don't you boys run back to your camp?_ "

" _Oh good idea, I think we'll just turn around and head back to our- DIIIIIIE!_ " the bandit said, followed by the sounds of gunshots.

We begin walking up the path, fighting bullymongs who had set up- Dens? Hives? Warrens?... I think gorillas have nests and they're like gorillas so…- nests in the ice walls on the side of the path.

Angel decided to say something after the long silence since before we arrived in Liar's Berg " _Pandora is a violent and dangerous place, Sanctuary is… slightly less so. You'll need a car to reach the city gate. Get to the Catch-A-Ride._ "

"The what-now?" I asked, only to be ignored by our friend.

'Friend', is that what Angel is? We don't know anything about her other then that she wants to help us.

Now don't get me wrong, I appreciate what Angel has done for us, but, well…

If I've learnt anything from video games (and I have, many thing, they are a much better source of information then most people give them credit for) it's that when someone helps you for nothing, _you should get fucking suspicious_.

And for that matter, what even _is_ Angel? Human? AI? If the second, how advanced? Certainly advanced enough that she could probably pass the Turing Test. And if human, how was she such a good hacker?

At the top of the plateau was a small bandit camp surrounded by a wall made of scrap metal, with the entrance made out of the jaws of some massive, long-dead beast.

Near it was a pair of platforms that reminded me of those ones in mechanic's garage so that the cars can be lifted up to see the bottom, with a small terminal next to them.

" _This machine will digitally construct a vehicle for you. Give it a try._ " Said Angel as we approached it.

I went to the terminal, but when I tried to press a button, the screen turned red and a voice that sound like every hillbilly man I had every heard in movies, TV shows and games rolled into one said " _Whoa, unauthorized user up in my grill! You trying to hack my Catch-A-Ride? Uncool bro, uncool._ "

" _Damnit-"_ " said Angel" _-er, sorry. Darnit. A man named Scooter controls these Catch-A-Ride machines - he may be short a few chromosomes, but he's a savant when it comes to vehicles. He's locked this station to prevent the bandits from using it, but I'm reading an inactive Hyperion bot in the Bloodshot camp. If you can attach its interface adapter to the Catch-A-Ride, I can hack the machine and get you a car._ "

"Wait, what are you apologizing for?" I asked.

" _Uh, for swearing?_ "

I looked at the others "Anyone here got a problem with swearing?" everyone said 'no' "Then you are fine to swear, Angel."

" _I… would prefer not to._ "

"Would me swearing make you uncomfortable?"

" _A little bit?_ "

"Then I shall try not to when talking to you."

I saw the others looking at me weirdly "What? Do I have something on my goggles?"

"We are… slightly confused as to why you would care about Angel's opinion of swearing." Said Maya.

I sighed "Look, my mum raised my to respect the opinions of others, 'treat others how you want to be treated' and all that jazz. I'm not sure how much we can trust Angel, but she's helped us so far, so I'll be polite and not swear if she doesn't like it."

We entered the camp with guns blazing and bandits dying (I am the worst pacifist ever), fighting our way through the small outpost.

As we fought, I noticed a new type of bandit, which my finicky memory of Borderlands decided to inform me were called 'Nomads'. They looked like smaller Flynts with brown robes covered in pouches and weird leather masks that covered their whole head, with a white portion over their upper face.

I blinked behind one of them and stabbed him with my sabre, but he just turned around and pointed his assault rifle in my face.

"Thanks for the loot, bitch!" he yelled, before I blinked behind him again, yanked my sword out and stabbed his head.

I don't care what kind of freaky mutant you are, a sword to the back of your head is going to kill you.

After looting from the dead (ladies and gentlemen, our heroes) we found the deactivated Loader bot Angel was talking about; Gaige opened a maintenance panel and pulled some form of… doohicky out.

" _Just attach the adapter onto the Catch-A-Ride and I'll get you a free car._ " Said Angel.

After making our way back to the Catch-A-Ride station-

"OH MY FUCKING… WELL I DON'T BELIEVE IN GOD, BUT STILL! OH MY FUCKING GOD!" I yelled, beginning to laugh.

"What? What is it?" asked Axton, confused.

"Catch-A-Ride! C-A-R! Car! I just got that!"

Not only do I know that this 'Scooter' guy was very clearly cool, I now know what six people facepalming at once sounds like.

Gaige attached the doohicky to the side of the C.A.R (*snort*) and Angel said " _Executing phase shift._ " And the C.A.R (*Giggles*) began glitching.

" _Rescinding lockdown._ " It said.

" _Wait a moment while I hack the Catch-A-Ride._ "

"Don't you mean th-" I heard the distinctive *click-click* of a shotgun being pumped, and turned to see the barrel of Axton's Hyperion 'Crowdsourcing' gun (ahhh, Hyperion, will you ever stop thinking buzzwords make good weapon names?).

"Go ahead, make, my, day."

The station suddenly let forth more of the voice of Billy McHill " _Authorized user accepted. Enjoy the ride and there's a Pimento Taco- a Pimentaco- in the glove box._ "

" _Cool._ " Said Angel" _Try requesting another car… from the C.A.R._ "

"YES!" I yelled.

"NO!" groaned everyone else.

"IF YOU WERE HERE, ANGEL, I WOULD HIGH-FIVE YOU SO HARD!"

We looked at the options on the terminal, finding that the only thing that could be digistructed was some kind of dune-buggy thing called a 'Light Outrunner', which had two seats, one for the driver, and one for a gunner in a turret, which could be either a rocket launcher or a machine gun.

After a brief decision, the seating arrangements were car one had Axton driving and Sal on the machine gun, car two had Maya driving and Krieg on the rockets, car three had Gaige driving and me on the machine gun, and car four had Zer0 on his own, using a secondary set of controls to work the rockets.

I climbed into the (surprisingly comfy) seat on top of the Runner and familiarized myself with the gun before looking down to Gaige's seat in front of and a bit below mine.

"You ready?"

"You know it, blondie! Just… figuring out how to work this thing."

"Wait… do you know how to drive?"

"Do you?"

"Uhhhhh…"

"Thought so."

"I… am very scared."

" _Thanks for using Scooter's Catch-A-Ride, beeyotch!_ " said the C.A.R as we drove off the platforms.

" _Real charmer, that one._ " Said Angel " _You should now be able to digistruct cars from any Catch-A-Ride station. Now use them to jump that gap._ "

Car one went first. Axton lined himself up with the remnants of the bridge before charging forwards at top speed, even using what I can only describe as a turbo boost.

When his tires hit the ground on the over side, he moved over so that car two could go, and Maya did the jump with the same level of success, followed by Zer0.

When Gaige lined us up, I said "Gaige, if I die, I want you to know: I hated you the least."

"Geez, man, have some faith will ya?"

"I'm a pessimist! That is literally the opposite of what I do!"

I braced myself as Gaige floored the accelerator, and saw her reach over and press a button labelled 'press to zoom' and-

 _HOLY FUCKING SHIT BALLS_.

When the car landed on the other side of the gap, Gaige said "See? Perfectly fine, what did I tell you?"

I fell back in my seat and weakly said "I have spoken with God, and He has abandoned us."

"…Why do I get the feeling that you just made a very nerdy reference?"

"Because I did."

" _Great!_ " said Angel" _Now head to Sanctuary and find Roland. He'll want to meet the Vault Hunters who stared down Handsome Jack and lived._ "

We drove on through an ice tunnel full of bullymongs, which those of us in the turret seats decided to use for target practise.

Of course, Jack had to ruin everything by talking.

" _Sometimes I envy you bandits - you're so... unburdened… with things like intelligence, culture, morality, honour, ambition, good looks... I could go on but I won't… But I could._ "

"Well, fuck you t-" I started to say.

" _Ah, dignity! Almost forgot to mention dignity._ " He interrupted, followed by the sound of a horse whinnying " _Easy Butt Stallion, easy!_ "

"I hate you; I hope you step on Lego barefoot."

After making our way through the ice tunnel, we emerged on a snowy plane; we found a road and followed it, and after finding a signpost, were on the road to Sanctuary.

* * *

At the outer gates to Sanctuary, a bandit was pounding on the gate and yelling "Let us in, grinder! We're only gonna kill every last one of ya!" he then lifted his head and asked "Hey, what's that nois-"

That was about when Gaige crashed into him.

"High-larious!" yelled the mechroamcer.

"What does that even mean? Why did you have to crash? Why did you think this was a good idea?"

"Hey, he's dead, isn't he?"

After dealing with the bandit's friends, we approached an intercom next to the gates, Axton pressed the button and-

" _You're not getting into Sanctuary, you Bloodshot skaglicks!_ " came a voice from the other side " _…oh, hold up. You're Vault Hunters. Just a sec, Roland wanted to talk to you._ "

"How did he know we were Hunters?" I asked confused.

"Beats me;" replied Axton "maybe he could tell from just looking at us through the cameras that we're so much better at killing bandits then him."

A new voice came, this time over our ECHOs, the profile picture showing a black man; he was bald and was wearing a gray beret adorned with a pin with the Crimson Raider symbol on it (a Vault symbol with a lance through it); the picture didn't show his lower body, but showed enough of his upper body to see he was wearing a gray sweater with red lines on the arms and around the neck, and a pair of bandoliers going over his shoulders; the caller ID read 'Roland'.

" _Ah, so you're the group I've been hearin' all this radio chatter about. Name's Roland, used to be a Vault Hunter like you, until I formed the Crimson Raiders. We'll catch up when I get back to Sanctuary. For now, I need your help. My men tell me Corporal Reiss hasn't returned the power core we need to keep the city's shields running. Bring Reiss back to Sanctuary, and you'll have earned your place in the Raiders._ "

Gaige took out her ECHO and begin fiddling with it.

"What the hell are you doing?" asked Axton.

"One: I don't answer to you, soldier boy." She said "Two: searching for any nearby ECHOs registered under a 'Corporal Reiss'."

After a few seconds, Gaige said she found a signal and we all got back in our Runners and followed her lead.

As we drove, another earthquake shook the ground beneath us, and shortly after, Jack broadcasted on an open channel.

" _Handsome Jack here, reminding you all not to worry your pretty little heads about those earthquakes. See, with every tremor, my drills get closer to the Vault, to freedom, order, and safety for all of us. Except you asshats in Sanctuary._ "

We got to where the signal Gaige found came from, a snowy field with some destroyed Runners nearby and, after driving off a band of bullymongs, found what looked like a cassette tape.

Maya picked it up and put it in a slot in her ECHO, and an audio recording of a frantic sounding Reiss played " _Got the power core from the Bloodshots... blew the bridge... I'm hit... Gotta lose 'em in the Marrowfields- AHHH!_ "

" _Reiss is in trouble?_ " Said Roland over our ECHOs" _Dammit, we're spread thin enough as it is. Find him, soldiers._ "

We found the area Reiss motioned, the Marrowfields, and continued on foot since the Runners were too big to fit through the entrance.

Reiss broadcasted once more " _Goddamned Bloodshots, there's too many of 'em! If anyone can hear me, I need help!_ "

"Sit tight!" I answered "Help's on the way!"

" _Well whoever you are, hurry! I don't know how much longer I can-_ " he apparently stopped broadcasting.

We ran to where the signal had come from, finding a group of three psychos kicking him.

Maya Phaselocked one and threw him off a nearby cliff, before opening fire with her SMG on the second; the third was dealt with by a buzzaxe to the forehead by a leaping Krieg.

We ran to Reiss, but it was clear that we were too late, his injures were severe, he was going to die.

"Vault Hunters? Didn't think I rated that much of a rescue." He chuckled weakly "One of those psychos ran off with the power core. Without it, Sanctuary'll be defenceless. Get that core back to Sanctuary. I'm just gonna take a nap; wake me up… when I'm not on Pandora any more…"

…

"Hey, you think he had anything good on hi-"

I punched Axton in the face before he could finish his sentence; he stumbled back, more out of shock then the psychical force of the blow; I've never been that strong.

"The hell was that for?" he said.

"A man just died, Axton." I said, my voice filled with barely contained rage "Show some fucking respect."

All was silent before Roland's voice came from our ECHOs " _What's going on? Did you find Reiss?_ "

"He's… dead, Roland. I'm sorry." Said Maya.

" _Reiss is dead? He was one of the first Crimson Lancemen I recruited to the Raiders… Get that power core back. And while you're at it, kill some bandits for Reiss; it's what he would've wanted._ "

We walked to a nearby bandit camp Roland gave us the coordinates to, and begin killing the outlaws within.

Salvador fired one of his rifles at a nomad; the mutant seemed unfazed by the bullets, yelling "That the best you got, _midget_?!"

His eyes twitching, the gunzerker digistructed his other rifle in to his left hand and angrily said "I am five foot, four inches, and three quarters…"

He opened fire on the nomad, shouting " _Y te destruiré!_ "

As Sal campaigned to end heightism in psychopathic outlaws, I was engaged in a fire fight with some marauders.

I noticed a psycho running towards my cover; I fired at her, but she rolled out my way.

I drew my sabre and just managed to block a swing from the pipe she was holding, and then ran her through, pulling my sword out with more force then I intended to which knocked me off balance slightly, causing my sword arm to fly behind me-

 _Shink!_

I saw something land on the ground next to my feet.

Two bullet halves.

…

No one can know this was luck.

 _No one_.

I looked over at the bandits, who had seen my act of _SKILL_ and had stopped firing; I cockily flourished my blade and said "Next?" before blinking behind them.

After the camp had been thoroughly emptied, we found what I thought was the power core in one of the shacks; I took a picture of it and sent it to Roland "This it?"

" _That's the power core, great. Jack won't destroy Sanctuary today, at least. Get back to the city; we'll meet up once I get there. Welcome to the Crimson Raid-_ " I heard the sound of gunshots from his end of the line" _Ah, dammit. I'm being attacked, I'll see-_ " I heard an explosion, then nothing.

"That doesn't sound good." Said Gaige "We… should head back."

As we drove back to Sanctuary, a certain egomaniac begin broadcasting.

" _This is a message to Sanctuary 'the last stronghold of the resistance'._ " Said Jack, in a mocking tone" _Pandora as you knew it- the chaos, the bandits- that time has passed. If you could let it, this could be an era of order, of peace! Just turn yourselves in, and I promise: your deaths will be quick._ "

The broadcast ended, but Jack then begin speaking directly to us " _You like my speech? I was lying about the last part, by the way. I'm gonna spend a long time torturing you bandit scum to death. And I'll enjoy it even more because- ah, I shouldn't say anymore. I've got a little secret that I, uh… you know what? You don't need to hear it; it'll probably just confuse ya. Ciao!_ "

"Hey, before you go…" I said.

" _Oh? The Robin Hood wannabe took time out of his busy schedule of D &D and jerking off to furry porn to say something?_"

"Jack? You're a jackass."

"… _What?_ "

"You heard me. Also, I would like to point out that even though I'm English and thus say 'arse' instead of 'ass', I said jackass because 'jackarse' sounds like you're having a coughing fit."

"… _The fuck is wrong with you?_ "

"I'm really, really weird."

We drove on to the city of Sanctuary, hoping that they were more welcoming of Vault Hunters then Jack was.

* * *

 **And thus our intrepid heroes (of questionable morality) are on their way to Sanctuary! What randomness awaits them? Find out next time on- whatever this shit is! I lost track around the twenty-seventh paragraph!**

 **Note time:**

 **1: The song that was playing in the flashback was** _ **Boulevard of Broken Dreams**_ **by Green Day, WHICH I DO NOT OWN PLZ NO SUE.**

 **2: I literally only got the Catch-A-Ride joke whilst writing this, HOW DID I NOT NOTICE?**

 **3: I've always thought that Angel would be the kind of person who likes puns, don't know why.**

 **4: If you know where 'I have** **spoken with God, and He has abandoned us' and Sal's height speech are from, you get an imaginary cookie and fifty internet points.**

 **5: To any Spanish speakers reading this: I'm sorry about any mistakes in Salvador's Spanish; I don't speak Spanish and am thus forced to use Google Translate.**

 **6: Am I the only one who spent the entire game waiting for someone to call Jack a jackass, then no one did? What the hell?**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**

* * *

 **Something old, something rotten**

 **Something corrupted, something forgotten**

 **Shadows dance and twist and turn at the corners of mortal perception.**

 **Look and they grow angry, don't look and they shall see your fear and rejoice.**

 **In the mouth of all hallow's eve, our tale begins**

 **Be ready, little ants.**

 **expergiscimini, parum mortale...**


	8. Sanctuary

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder.**

* * *

 **Dedicated to my dog, Sophie, who was unfortunately put to sleep on the 14** **th** **of October due to old age.**

 **Sophie, you were with us for but a few short years, but those years I shall treasure always.**

* * *

 _ **Twelve weeks after arrival.**_

"You sure this is the best decision? _"_

 _I was packing my bags in my room, getting ready to 'accept' Hyperion's offer of a train ride to Opportunity._

" _No, not really, but someone's got to do it. Besides, might be fun."_

"I know, it's just… you're the only one who knows where I am. What happens to me if you die? _"_

" _You have Jerk-face 2."_

" _I HATE-ATE YOU BO-BOTH!" came a voice from down the hall._

"Case and point as to why I don't count that as a good thing. _"_

" _Look, if I die, I'll come haunt this place, sound good?"_

 _She sighed "_ Fine, but be careful. You're like my only friend. _"_

" _Oh, please," I said picking up my bags "what's the worst that can happen?"_

…

"Really? _"_

" _I should not have said that."_

"YOU THINK? _"_

* * *

 _ **15/10/2566. Two days later.**_

 _I approached the Loader bot standing behind the front desk of the train station, somewhat weary after two days of travel._

" _PLEASE PRESENT IDENTIFICATION."_

 _I placed my invitation on the desk, prompting the robot to scan it._

" _PROCESSING… WELCOME, DOMINIC! PLEASE SPECIFY YOUR VAULT HUNTER TITLE."_

 _I paused, having forgotten about the fact that Hunters took titles in place of last names._

 _As I tried to think of a title, I thought about all that had happened over the passed three months. I had seen atrocities committed by both bandits and Hyperion agents, and stepped in to stop them._

 _I had built a reputation as someone you could count on if there was trouble, someone to turn to when you had nowhere else to go._

 _Suddenly, I came to a decision._

" _Call me 'the Knight'"_

 _Even if knights had, in reality, not been as noble as portrayed in every movie ever, the popular image of a knight fit me: a noble warrior who would fight and die for a cause he found just._

 _And so, I stepped onto the train, carrying my sabre, my bow, my favourite revolver, a shotgun from my stash, and some powers I had little understanding of._

 _When I arrived on Pandora, I was confused and scared out of my mind, but now? All I want to do is make this place safe for everyone who's had to suffer here._

 _Pandora may not be a place for heroes… but hell, I'm no hero._

 _I'm just an idiot with too many morals._

 _And I reckon that's all this planet needs._

* * *

"Whoa," I said, looking back at the blizzard now covering the outer gates "glad we didn't hang out back there."

We were approaching the small city of Sanctuary, passing several checkpoints and guard outposts manned by Crimson Raiders.

" _Made it to Banditville, huh?_ " said, you guessed it, Jack " _Well done! It'll be nice to see some friendly faces when I'm burning that place to the ground. Oh, and I've decided that I will tell you guys my secret later on. Once you've earned it._ "

I sighed "Ok, say aye if you think that, when we torture him to death, the first ten minutes should be taking turns to kick him in the balls."

Five 'ayes' and one 'I WILL PUT MY FINGERS IN THE EYE SOCKETS OF THE OLD ONES AND WATCH THEIR PENIS-TIPPED FEET WRIGGLE IN JOY!'.

This is why weird friends are the best kind.

We parked next to a guard post near the main gates, walking up the stairs to find a Raider soldier. The Crimson Raider uniform was basically just military fatigues with red combat armour over the top, and sometimes a bucket shaped helmet with red lenses over the eyes, but this guy's armour was green and had 'Lt. Davis' engraved on the chest plate; whether the palette swap was a statement of rank or something else I'm not sure.

"You're the ones Commander Roland was talkin' about. The team that faced Jack and lived!" I recognised his voice as the one that greeted us so… _politely_ when we first got to the outer gate "Look, we need your help, _bad_ , but first things first, plug that power core into the shield generator."

He gestured to a device that looked like some form of antenna, with what was obviously a depleted power core in it.

I walked over to the generator and pulled the old core out, placing it on a nearby table before digistructing the new core and placing it inside.

A small arm attached to the core, pushing it further into the generator before making it spin.

A beam shot out of the antenna, causing a transparent dome to appear over the city and part of the surrounding area, before disappearing.

"Good." Said Davis "That oughtta last us a day or two. Roland was supposed to bring us some intel on how to stop Jack; with him missing, we really need your help. Talk to Private Jessup at the gate, He'll let you into the city."

As we walked back to our cars, I heard him say (presumably into his ECHO) "JESSUP! Stand up straight; we got Vault Hunters headed your way!"

As we drove closer to the city, Davis said on an open channel " _Blitz! Look alive, everybody!_ " before what looked like missiles - apparently fired from Hyperion's space station- hit the shield, making ripples in the invisible dome.

" _The hell was that?!_ " yelled Axton though his ECHO.

" _Hyperion moonshot blitz._ " explained Davis " _Without that fresh core you brought, those lunar mortars woulda punched right through the shield._ "

"You know, Gaige," I said "that space station's always pissed me off on an intellectual level."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, for a start, they call it a moon base; a moon base is a base on the moon, but that thing is very clearly a space station; just because it floats next to the moon doesn't make it a moon base; and the bloody _name_! 'Helios'! I appreciate a Greek mythology reference as much as the next guy, but Helios was god of the sun! They could have called it Selene, since she _was_ the moon goddess, and they were both children of Hyperion, so-"

"Blondie?" she interrupted.

"Uh, yes?"

"You nerdiness is showing."

"Uh, sorry."

"Eh, don't worry about it, it's actually kinda cute."

"I-wa-uh-um-you-You said it like that on purpose!" I said, blushing.

"Hell yeah I did!" she laughed.

"SMOOTH MOVES, LOVER BOY!" yelled Axton from the car behind us.

I turned my turret, pointing the machine gun at him "GIVE ME A FUCKING REASON, AXTON!"

" _Boys,_ " said Maya, from the car in front " _can we please wait until we are at least in the city before killing each other?_ "

We reached the main gate; a Crimson Raider (the Jessup that Davis was calling, I would assume) opened the gate for us before saying "Commander Roland never came back from his secret reconnaissance mission. He left very specific orders for this contingency which you can help carry out. Go meet with the town mechanic."

" _Crap._ " said Angel " _\- I mean, darn. Roland needs your help; without you, the Crimson Raiders don't stand a chance against Jack. Please find out where Roland's gone._ "

We entered the city, immediately coming to a dead end, with side paths too small for cars to get though leading further into Sanctuary.

" _Sanctuary. Built on the ruins of the Dahl Corporation's finest interplanetary mining ship, now the last refuge for thieves, murderers and outcasts. Welcome home._ " Said Angel.

The only building that could be reached without getting out of our cars was a place with a sign that said 'Scooter's' with images of a wheel, what looked to me like some form of bug with bird wings, a small Dahl logo, and… you know that woman on trucker mud flaps? Leaning back in a reclined position? Like that, but with the woman being overweight.

We got out of our Runners and approached the garage doors, prompting one to automatically open.

Inside was what one would expect from a garage: cars and trucks in various states of assembly, parts and tools on tables and shelves, that sort of thing.

In the middle of it all was a man sitting in a chair, apparently asleep, with his feet up on a pair of tires stacked on top of each over; he was wearing a trucker cap with the same overweight mud flap girl from the sign on it, a green T-shirt with a yellow vest over it, a bracelet on his right arm, and what I could only think of as a bracer on his left, with beige cargo pants and brown boots; his face, arms and clothes were all covered in oil.

Hearing the door open, he woke up and, seemingly still half-asleep, said "Oh, crap, is you Hyperion?" I recognised his voice as the one from the C.A.R station "I heard all of you are robots and you eat metal out of the garbage and stuff. Knew you wired death machines would be coming for me once Roland went missing."

He inspected a wrench he held in his hand "Now, if you're here to kill me, you should probably know..." suddenly, he leaped out of his chair and on to the stack of tires, waving his wrench wildly "YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, YOU ROBOTIC SUMBITCHS!"

* * *

 **Scooter**

 **Catch-A-Ride!**

* * *

"Wait a minute...!" he said, jumping off the tires "Well, hang me upside down from a telephone pole, cover me in honey, and leave me to a slow death at the hands of hungry spiderants! You ain't no Hyperion robots, you're Vault Hunters! That's like a unicorn!"

"Wait, what was that about Spideran-" I started.

"You gonna help us out with this Roland situation?" the mechanic interrupted "I heard them Crimson Raider dudes talkin' about it. Roland told me if he ever disappeared, I was supposed to initiate Plan B- or, as I like to call it, Plan Turn-this-city-into-a-floatin'-ass-fortress-of-airborne-awesomeness!" He laughed "…B. I got some fuel cells around here. You'll need those- oh and you'll need this Eridium here, too."

He handed us an ingot made of a glowing purple material that I had a hard time figuring out if it was crystal or a metal.

I had heard of Eridium (not to be confused with iridium) before; about five years ago, a team of Vault Hunters made up of Roland, a siren named Lilith, a universe-trotting sniper named Mordecai, and a mutant mercenary with more angry issues then common sense named Brick, found and opened a Vault on Pandora; shortly after, Eridium started popping up everywhere.

Like, _literally_ , just… growing out of the ground.

Eridium was highly prized for two reasons: it could only be found on Pandora, and it was an amazing power source (ya'know, besides the radiation).

Of course, Jack took all the credit, declaring the Hunters bandits, destroying their home base in New Haven, and killing Lilith, but the locals still know the truth.

I grabbed the Eridium as Gaige (after slipping a glove that I'm fairly certain was for handling radioactive stuff on to her non-cybernetic hand) picked up the fuel cells from some nearby shelves.

"So, what do we do with these?" asked Maya.

"Head to the centre a' town and plug those two fuel cells into the ignition primers. You gon' need a third, which is why I gave you that there rid-rock; you can buy the last cell from Earl's black market. Careful though, Earl's crazy; he ate one of my cars once… Yeah… The whole car… Just with, like, a fork."

'… _What? How? WHY?'_

We exited the garage and made our way to the centre of town, finding a large obelisk with the word 'Sanctuary' on it.

I handed the Eridium to Zer0 and said "You go buy the cell from this 'Earl' guy."

The assassin walked off into the city as I digistructed my bag and pulled a pair of gloves similar to the one Gaige had out of it.

"Why do you have those?" asked Gaige, handing me one of the cells.

I shrugged "I figured it's probably a bad idea to mess with laser innards without protection."

I walked over to a small hatch on the ground, and lifted it up; as I installed the core, the jackass begin broadcasting "Bandits of Sanctuary! I hear a new bunch of Vault Hunters has arrived in your city. So just turn 'em in to me, and you'll be rewarded."

A passing Raider shook his head and said "Don't worry; nobody's gonna turn you in; you're our only hope of stopping Jack."

After placing the core into the hole, it closed automatically, before the hatch and the ground around it lifted, forming a small tower.

" _Roland said we gotta have an exit strategery just in case he ever disappeared,_ " said Scooter over our ECHOs " _hence all the fuel cells and whatnot. Bummer, though; he really wanted to meet ya. Raiders ain't gonna last long without some new blood, and given how you shot them bandits up I'd say you and blood got an extra-special relationship. Like cousins takin' a bath together!_ " he laughed.

"…The fuck?" exclaimed Axton.

"For once, soldier boy," said Gaige "we agree; the fuck?"

Zer0 returned (refusing to speak about his little shopping trip beyond vague mutterings about smell) and, after we had installed the last cell, Scooter said " _Hey, thanks for grabbin' all that stuff for me; third degree burns are best taken in shifts. Now, to see the fruits of you loins, this city's gonna FLY!_ "

They're was a deep rumbling sound as the ground shook, and… nothing, the shaking stopped as the towers went back into the ground.

"… _Or… not. Damn. Well, now we REALLY gotta find Roland. You know what; maybe get to Roland's place. I think he mighta left a message there for ya'all._ "

We walked to a building on the north side of the town centre, which had a small balcony below the words 'SANCTUARY CITY ARCHIVES' carved into the brickwork; between the balcony and the words was a black, gray and white banner with the CR logo and the words 'FIGHT BACK! JOIN THE RESISTANCE'.

A CR soldier outside the building opened the door and said "Vault Hunters! Get in; Roland left a message for you."

Inside the building were a large number of bunk beds and lockers, along with a desk right in front of you when you enter the place.

I could see someone in the back, muttering into an ECHO whilst looking over some papers, but I choose to ignore them for now and pick up the ECHO tape (which is what I'm going to call them until I find out what the real name is) on the desk and put it in my ECHO.

" _Hey, soldiers._ " Came Roland's voice" _If you're hearing this, I'm in trouble. Right now, you're the only thing standing between this city- hell, the whole planet- and Handsome Jack's army. I left info about my whereabouts in my safe upstairs. You can use it to store anything you need. This city is your home, now. Good luck._ "

We hurried up the stairs (which were in front and to the left of the door), and came into what looked like a common area, with two bunk beds (two? Four?... four in two pairs), a ratty old couch, some posters, and a huge safe door.

Opening the safe, we found that inside was a small storage room, with a few rows of shelves with nothing on them, save for a single ECHO tape.

Playing the tape, all we heard was a heavily distorted voice say " _This is the Firehawk. Come to Frostburn Canyon or people will die._ "

"Shit." I said, at the same time as Sal said " _Mierda._ "

"What? What is it?" asked Axton.

"Firehawk is a bounty hunter, and a ruthless one at that." I said "Loves burning bandits to death."

" _If Roland has been captured by the Firehawk, he's in danger._ " Said Angel " _You're the only ones who can stop Jack, but Roland is the man with the plan, so to speak; he knows the best way to strike at Hyperion._ "

"With the blizzard covering the area outside the city," said Maya "it's unlikely we'll be able to get to this 'Frostburn Canyon' right now."

Zer0 nodded "For now, we should get/ familiar with our new home./ It'll pass soon enough."

We left the building, going out into the town centre.

"Hey, is that us?" asked Axton, pointing to a stand with a sign that read 'This Just In!'.

Walking over, I saw what Axton was pointing at: hanging on the stand were wanted posters of all of us, seemingly made by Hyperion, complete with pictures.

* * *

 **Axton**

 _ **War crimes**_

 **$5,000,000,000**

* * *

 **Zer0**

 _ **Political Assassination**_

 **$32,000,000,000**

* * *

 **Maya**

 _ **Siren**_

 **$720,000,000,000**

* * *

 **Salvador**

 _ **Manslaughter**_

 _ **Theft**_

 _ **Arson**_

 _ **Destruction of Property**_

 _ **Trespassing**_

 _ **Cannibalism**_

 _ **Public Indecency**_

 _ **Profanity**_

 **$99,000,000,000.99**

(Sal's was so long it looked like they ripped another poster in half and wrote the rest of his crimes on it, then stapled it to the original)

* * *

 **Gaige**

 _ **Creation of Unauthorised Technology**_

 _ **Excessive Adorability**_

 **$820,000,000,000**

* * *

 **Krieg**

 _ **Property of Hyperion**_

 **$100,000,000,000**

* * *

 **Dominic**

 _ **Vigilantism**_

 _ **Unauthorised After-Market Weapon Modification**_

 _ **Witchcraft**_

 **$600,000,000,000**

* * *

"…Ok," I said, after a moment of silence "we all have questions, so I'll start by saying…" I turned to Sal and yelled "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!" as I pointed to his poster.

The gunslinger simply shrugged and calmly said "I'm Pandoren."

"War crimes?" asked Gaige "I knew you were fucked up, soldier boy, but this… wow. Just… wow."

"Hey! Those explosions were awesome!"

"I hesitate to ask what you were exploding" said Maya "and if it was truly necessary to do so. On the subject of Krieg, I would assume he's an escaped Hyperion test subject."

"Hey, Gaige," I said "I think whoever's in charge of making wanted posters for Hyperion is trying to flirt with you." I pointed to the words 'Excessive Adorability'.

"Pfft, they can keep flirting; I don't date corporate tools."

Suddenly realising something, I turned to the (thoroughly confused) clerk inside the stand and said "I just realised that we're having a whole conversation in front of your stand without acknowledging your presence; sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he said "at least you're not beating me up for spreading Hyperion propaganda."

"Wait, what?" I asked.

"I record the Hyperion news broadcasts and hand out copies to people, want one?" He held out an ECHO tape with 'This Just In!' written on it.

I took the tape and put it in my ECHO, hearing some over dramatic intro music.

* * *

" _And now, for the latest addition of This Just In, with Hunter Hellquist!"_

" _This is Hunter Hellquist, of Hyperion Truth Broadcasting. The bandit city of Sanctuary has been all but destroyed by internal struggle and the might of Hyperion's noble forces. Handsome Jack's heartfelt pleas to the bandit population have done nothing to stem the tide of death, murder, and corruption that tears Sanctuary down from within. With any luck, the last bastion of bandit resistance will be but cinders and rubble before the year is out."_

* * *

I looked around me "Yeahhh, really not seeing the death and murder." I put my ECHO back on my belt and said "Well, I'm going to see what's around here."

With that, we all went our separate ways to explore the city.

* * *

After walking down a side street, I found a large sign that simply said 'GUNS!' (with a dollar sign in place of an S), with a pair of revolver barrels and an image of a smiling man with a flat top and a goatee, along with the words 'Marcus Munitions inc.'.

I had seen the Marcus Munitions vending machines around the place; there were green ones with a image of a cartoonish spent shotgun shell (Its top flaring out like a jester's cap) with arms and legs, juggling grenades, which sold ammo and grenade mods, and red ones with a revolver in stockings and high heels posing sexily with a price tag, which sold guns.

The sign sat above an alleyway, with several smaller signs pointing towards an open door at the end of the alley.

Going through the door and down a set of stairs, I came into a small room which was cut in half by a counter that reminded me of the ones that they had in banks, but with steels bars in place of bullet-proof glass.

In the room were two people; a rather unremarkable but quite nervous looking man, and who I could only assume was the owner of the shop, standing behind the counter.

It was clearly the man from the sign; his hair was black and going gray; I couldn't see his lower body, but I could see he was wearing what looked like a orangeish-brown winter jacket, with a red shirt on underneath; he was also overweight.

"C-can I get a refund, please?" asked the nervous looking man "T-this gun doesn't seem to work."

"Hmm, I don't know…" said the man behind the counter with a thick Russian accent, inspecting a revolver, before smirking…

And shooting the other man in the leg.

"Looks like it works to me!" he said, as the man grabbed his leg, screaming.

* * *

 **Marcus Kincaid**

 **NO REFUNDS!**

* * *

Seeing me, the man- Marcus, I assume- smiled and said "Ah, a new customer! Welcome to my humble shop!"

The man on the ground groaned, visibly annoying Marcus and prompting him to say "What, you're still here? Get out! I have other business to attend too."

The man, probably fearing for his life, limped up the stairs and passed me with surprising quickness.

"Now, where was I?" said Marcus "Ah, yes; my name is Marcus Kincaid, owner and proprietor of Marcus Munitions! You won't find better merchandise anywhere else! I've made sure of that…"

"…I don't trust you." I said, after a moment of silence.

"As long as you buy from me, I couldn't care less what you think of me. Anyway, who are you?"

"Dominic the Knight."

"A Vault Hunter, eh? In that case I have a question: if you're going to be part of the Crimson Raiders, you better know how to use elemental weapons, don't 'ya think?"

Admittedly, I hadn't gotten the chance to mess around with elemental tech all that much so far, with the exception of a Hyperion shock laser, so I was a little curious as to what Marcus was getting at.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've just got a crate of spanking new Maliwan elemental weapons; wanna help me test 'em out?"

I thought for a second and said "Fuck it, why not."

He smiled and said "Good, I'll see you in the firing range; let's try out the fire weapons first, ah?" Before going through a door to his left.

Noticing for the first time the open door to my right, I walked through it into a small hallway, before going into yet another open door into the aforementioned firing range.

Marcus (who I could now see wore beige cargo pants and brown boots) handed me a somewhat futuristic looking pistol painted in the white, teal and orange colours of Maliwan, with glowing red lines along it.

"Fire weapons" explained the gun dealer "are extremely effective against flesh, but they're crap at destroying shields"

"GO TO HELL, BANDITS!" came a voice; whilst I was listening to Marcus, a broad had appeared from the shadowed area in the back of the target range, with a man tied to it and a sign that read 'Vandal'.

"What the fuck?!" I yelled "You're testing your weapons on people?!"

"Eh, don't worry about it; everyone I test my guns on is ether a bandit, or one of Jack's goons."

"I'm still fairly certain this is several kinds of unethical!"

"OH LIKE YOU BANDIT SCUMBAGS CARE ABOUT ETHICS!"

Eyelid twitching occurred, specifically mine.

"You just going to stand there and take that?" asked Marcus "Or are you going to burn that imperialist bastard like a skag-stake!"

I raised the pistol and shot the Hyperion soldier in the chest; that one small bullet was enough to set his whole body aflame.

The broad begin moving back into the shadows as Marcus laughed and said "Fire and flesh, quite a nasty combination. Now, how about a shielded target?"

He took the incendiary pistol back and handed me a new one, with blue line instead of red ones.

A new target appeared; this time the sign above him read 'Cheapskate'.

"This Hyperion fascist thinks he's safe because he has a shield." Said Marcus "Spoilers! He's not."

"IT'S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME UNTIL JACK BURNS THIS CITY TO THE GROUND YOU RESISTANCE SCU-" I cut the man off by throwing a blast of lightning at him.

"No offence, Kincaid," I said, making energy arc between my fingers "but I already know the practical applications of electricity in combat."

He stared in confusion at my hands, before huffing and saying "Neat trick." Before taking the unused shock pistol from my hand and replacing it with one with light blue lines.

The new target was clearly an Anarc, if the uniform was anything to go by; the sign read 'rival's customer'.

"Sometimes, your enemies will be too fast for you to keep up, that's when you bust out the cryo guns!"

"YOU THINK YOUR FANCY GUNS WILL SAVE YOU FROM THE QUEEN? SHE'S THE FUCKING APOCALYPSE MADE FLESH!"

I fired the pistol (or should I say 'frosted'?... get it?... because it's an ice gun?... anyone? No? Ok.), causing his body to became covered in frost; a few shots later, and he was frozen solid.

"That's what you bandits get for going against the Raiders!" exclaimed Marcus "A few shots from a cryo weapon and you'll have all the time in the world to aim wherever you want."

He took the cryo gun before saying "Now what else… ah! Armour!"

He handed me a pistol with green line as the new target- a Loader bot with a sign that said 'Competitor'- came out of the shadowy back of the range.

"Armoured targets like these damned Hyperion robots can take a lot of damage… unless you've got a corrosive weapon!"

"WEAPONS MAY ONLY BE SOLD BY HYPERION REPRESENTATIVES." Said the robot "ALL NON-HYPERION WEAPON DEALERS WILL BE FORCIBLY RELOCATED TO JACKVILE."

I shot the robot in the eye, splashing acid over its body.

"See how the acid eats through the metal? I must confess: I love corrosive weapons!"

He took gun and replaced it with one with purple lines "Now, let's try out these new slag weapons!"

I immediately started to snicker.

"What? What's so funny?" asked Marcus.

"Slag," I said, giggling "Is an English slang term for a… promiscuous woman."

He stared blankly at me.

I sighed "Slut. It-it means the same thing as slut."

"Right… anyway, slag is a bit more complicated; if you slag your enemies, all non-slag damage will hurt even more! Here: slag this chump."

I fired the gun at the target- who, according the sign, was a shoplifter-, covering him in a purple goo that I had seen before in a Hyperion Eridium refining facility.

"Now that he's slagged, he should be easy enough to finish off."

I took out my Hyperion pistol and shot, the bullet having noticeably more effect then normal.

"Great, the weapons work!" said Marcus.

' _Unfortunately, we can't say the same about your sense of morality.'_

"Now, let's talk business."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I've seen your wanted posters; you know how to modify weapons, yes?"

"I may know a thing or two."

"I'll cut to the chase: if you agree to tinker with the guns I bring you, I'll not only give you a good deal on parts, but I'll also give you a cut of the earnings from any guns you've messed with, deal?" he held out his hand

I thought about it for a few seconds, then said "Deal" and shook his hand.

We made our way back to the front of the store, where I saw an ECHO tape on the counter.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh, that?" replied Marcus "A Raider left that there a few days ago, you can have it if you want."

I took the tape, putting it into my ECHO, hearing Roland's voice, apparently giving a speech.

* * *

" _Lancemen, attention! I only have one question to ask of you all. One question. Just a few years ago, we were enemies. But that time has passed. As glad as I am to see you all in Sanctuary, I know you wouldn't have come if you had any other option. I know how bad things are out there. I know how Jack's army has swept across this planet like a sandstorm, ripping apart everything in its way. When I joined the Crimson Lance years ago, they told me I'd be fighting to protect those who couldn't protect themselves. But you all know as well as I do, that was a lie. But this fight, against Hyperion? It isn't. If we don't band together, if we can't protect this city from Jack's army, then we're done for. I am Roland, and I only have one question to ask: ARE YOU WITH ME?!" *sounds of a large crowd cheering*_

* * *

' _Got to hand it to Roland: guy knows how to give a speech'_

I turned to Marcus and said "Before I go, I was hoping you might have some things I want in stock…"

* * *

I left the store with some new weapons in tow: a Jakobs revolver, a Hyperion shotgun, and a Maliwan corrosive SMG.

In the alleyway that Marcus's shop was in, I found another ECHO tape, this one also from Roland.

* * *

 _"If you can hear this, and you're sane enough to understand what I'm saying, head to Sanctuary. I don't care what Jack's told you, or how well-defended you think you are, the Hyperion army is coming to wipe you out. If you wanna survive, you get a gun, you come to Sanctuary... and you join the Crimson Raiders."_

* * *

The more I hear of this guy, the more I'm starting to like him.

* * *

I continued walking through the streets and getting to know the city, before coming to a large building with a neon sign that read 'MoXXXi's' with… I'm not sure what it's called; you know when it's like, a neon sign lights up different parts to make it look like it's moving? That. It was a woman's leg, in a high heel, rising up.

Looking in through the open door, I found it was not what I (and probably most people for that matter) had first thought: it was a bar.

Walking in out of curiosity, I went to the bar, finding it staffed by a rather… well endowed woman in one of the strangest ensembles I had seen: a purple top hat with a black and white… what ever the hell the band on a top hat is called, with a three feathers- coloured green, blue, and orange-, as well as a playing card- the queen of hearts- in said band.

She had shoulder length brown hair that looked like it contained at least five cans of hair spray and covered her right eye, a choker necklace, a purple Victorian-style tail coat that showed off her… um, moving on… the collar and cuffs of the coat had black and white stripes on, and she also wore black fingerless gloves.

She had a tattoo of a heart on her left… uh, anyway… her face was painted white, with bright red lipstick, pink blush, and black eye shadow that dripped down her face like she had been crying, but with too much precision to have been made that way.

She looked up from below the bar as I approached, and said, with a southern drawl "Well, haven't seen you around here before; the name's Moxxi, Mad Moxxi; what can I get 'ya, sugar?"

* * *

 **Mad Moxxi**

 **Not just a pretty… everything**

* * *

I sat at the bar and said "Got anything without copious amounts of alcohol in it?"

"Pretty sure you're the first person to ask that since I opened this place." She said, pouring me a glass of some pop (or soda, as Americans call it) I didn't recognise.

I drank from the glass, savouring the taste of what was basically liquid sugar.

"So, you got a name?" asked Moxxi.

"Dominic the Knight."

"Ah, so you're the 'know-it-all asshole kid who thinks he's better then everyone else.'"

"…Axton?"

"And the short one."

I sighed "In that case, I'd like to apologise for any unwanted advances, destruction of property, or bar brawls that may have happened as a result of their idiocy."

She laughed "Don't worry about it, sugar; they didn't do anything I haven't seen twenty times this week alone."

"Anyway," she said "this" she spread her arms out "Is Moxxi's, my own personal den of vice and sin; at least, until I can re-build the Underdome."

"The what-now?"

"The Underdome, it was an arena I used to run, 'til Handsome Jack burned it down."

"Did you do something to piss him off, or was this just because he's Jack, and he gets off on other people's misery?" I said, going to take another swig (I don't drink slowly).

"He thought I was cheating on him." She said, matter-of-factly.

I stopped, my glass halfway to my mouth "Wait, did you just say-"

"Yes, I dated Jack; in my defence, it was before he went all tyrant overlord."

A man sitting at the other end of the bar yelled "The fuck do I have to do to get fucking drink from you, slut?!"

Moxxi grimaced "Ugh, my adoring public; talk to you later, sugar."

She want and gave the arsehole a bottle of something called 'Rakk ale' (Since those giant bat things I'd seen flying around are called rakks, I guess it's made from them in some way); the arsehole loudly said "Fucking finally! What, did you get distracted by a butterfly, you fucking air-headed, bimbo whor-"

This was about the time I blinked behind him and slammed his head into the bar.

I pulled him off his stool, throwing him to the ground before placing my foot on his chest and putting my sword to his neck.

"What the fuck was that for?!" he yelled.

I was silent for a moment, then calmly said "Do you find it amusing to disrespect women?"

"…What?"

I pushed the blade closer to his neck "Answer, the, question."

"Fuck, I don't know, yes? Moxxi's a fuckin' whore anywa-"

I raised my foot, only to stamp back down on him.

"Dominic, please…"

Moxxi had stepped out from behind the bar when I wasn't looking; I could now see that she… didn't appear to be wearing pants or… anything, really. Instead, a part of her coat hung down over her crotch in a way the reminded me of a loincloth, and I could see what looked like blue knickers (or panties, as Americans call them, which just sounds dirtier to me); the tails of her coat flared out behind her, and she was wearing white, knee-high leather high-heeled boots; her right leg had a ripped fishnet stocking, whilst the right had a thigh high black and white striped sock.

She had a belt with two Xs on the buckle, and a holster hanging on it.

Presumably, for the pistol she was pointing at me.

It was a heavily modified Maliwan pistol, painted red, yellow and blue, with 'Mad Moxxi' on the barrel and an image of Moxxi herself in a pin-up pose on the main body of the gun.

"…Stop man-handling my customers, I have it under control."

I glared at the arsehole for a second, before stepping off him and sheathing my sabre.

He sprung up and went to punch me, only for a bullet, covered in sparks, to hit his hand.

He screamed, holding his hand and looking towards Moxxi…

Just in time to be punched in the face.

Moxxi must have been stronger then she looked, as the punch sent the man flying across the room.

The arsehole pulled himself up, only to be met by the barrel of Moxxi's gun.

"Now, sugar," she said "you haven't been a good boy, have you? Here's what you're going to do: you're going to leave my club, never come back, and be very aware of the fact that if you ever come in here again, I'll have my son bury you in a shallow grave, understood?"

He nodded franticly, before running out the door and into the city streets.

Moxxi holstered her pistol before turning to me and saying "Thanks for the help; I can deal with people like him, but it isn't exactly… fun."

"Don't worry about it, slut-shamers piss me off anyway."

"Slut-shamer?"

"If a guy sleeps around, then that's good, he's a stud, go him; girl sleeps around, she's a slut, and a whore, or whatever else people can think of; where's the logic in that? Personally, I think everyone- man, woman, or whatever- should just have as much sex as they feel comfortably with, be it lots or not at all."

"Social justice warrior much?" teased Moxxi, returning to behind the bar.

"And proud of it." I said, taking another swig from my drink.

"So, helping little old me out like that, I feel that you might deserve a… reward." She said, with a… certain tone, if you catch my drift.

I blushed, and said "Uh, thanks, but… no thanks."

She stared at me in confusion for a moment, before asking "Are you gay?"

It wasn't asked maliciously, or as an insult, more… curiously that anything.

"No?" I said.

"Asexual?"

"No, I'm straight."

"… Do you have a girlfriend?"

"Nether been in a relationship… ever, really. Why do you ask?"

"It's just… you are the second person I've ever met who's interested in women, not in a committed relationship, but doesn't want to have sex with me."

"I'm just… not interested in casual sex, or anything of the sort."

She shook her head and said "I'm starting to get the feeling that you're going to be a very interesting person to know."

"Trust me, I just get weirder." I finished my drink and said "Talk to you some other time, Moxxi." Before leaving the club.

As I left, I found another tape, which I listened to as I walked.

* * *

 _"Hey, Roland. Handsome Jack here, 'member me? My men kicked your bandit asses out of New Haven and killed your little pal Lilith. Ringin' any bells? Anyway, I hear you and the rest of your little buddies have relocated to Sanctuary. Just wanted to congratulate ya; you've successfully delayed your deaths by a few months. I'm gonna be real busy mining Eridium to charge that Vault Key I stole from your buddy Tannis, so you guys are gonna be low on my priority list for a while. So Ciao!"_

* * *

Is it just me, or does he get more dickish the more you hear about him?

* * *

I came to a small building with a pill-shaped sign that said 'Dr Zed', below it was a smaller sign shaped like a syringe that said '24/7 Clinic'.

Suddenly, I heard someone yell "SHUT UP! KILL THE LITTLE MAN! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" turning to follow the voice, I saw Krieg, walking towards me whilst punching himself in the face repeatable.

…Which seems pretty in character for him.

"Hey big guy," I said, waving to the madman "you want to check out the doctor's place together?"

"GREETINGS STORM-BRINGER! WE MUST INVADE THE DWELLING OF THE REVERSE SHANKER!"

We opened the door to the clinic, finding a smallish room with checkered flooring; the walls and floor were covered in blood both old and new; the back wall of the room had corpse drawers, like in a morgue.

I don't know about you, but I find that a bad sign.

A man, who appeared to have bluish skin, was strapped to the operating table, struggling to free himself whilst yelling "I'M STARVING! I WANT TO EAT YOUR BABIES!"

Also in the room was a man I recognised as the man from the medical vending machines - the man with neatly combed greying black hair and a surgical mask; he was wearing what looked like the top part of hospital scrubs under something that looked like a cross between a doctor's coat and an apron, which was stained in blood and had a tag on the chest that said 'My Name Is: Dr. Zed'; he had medical gloves, a red band on his left arm with a plus on it, and was wearing brown pants and black boots.

"Son," he said, with a southern American accent "this might sting a bit." Before violently stabbing the man on the table with a syringe.

* * *

 **Doctor Zed**

 **Do no harm**

* * *

Noticing us, 'Zed' said "Not seen you 'round these parts before; you must be part of this new group of Hunters I've been hearin' about."

"Uhh, yeah," I said "I'm Dominic the Knight, and this is Krieg the Psycho; might I address the elephant in the room and ask what in the BLOODY FUCK BALLS IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"

"Oh, you mean with this guy? Roland's boys caught this Hyperion jerkbag tryin' to sneak into the city; looks like they messed up his lungs, dude needs surgery, bad."

"Wait, why are we trying to save one of Jack's goons?"

"Can't get information out of a dead man." Zed seemed to have a light bulb moment "Hey, get over here: you two are goin' to be my operating assistants."

"I can think of several reasons as to why that's a bad idea."

"Ah, don't worry, it'll be fine." He handed me a scalpel and said "Alright, make a small incision just below his sternum, but be careful: we don't want to nick the coronary artery."

I stood there, trying to figure out want I was meant to do and, more importantly, how my life's choices had led me to this moment, before Krieg slammed his buzzaxe into the man's stomach.

"…Close enough." Said Zed, as Krieg span his axe's blade, making chucks of meat fly everywhere.

Seeing something odd on the floor amongst what I could only describe as wreckage at this point, I bent down to pick it up, finding it to be a shard of Eridium.

"An Eridium shard?! Ah, for- How many times I tell you idiots: you can't get slag powers by swallowing this stuff!"

He sighed "That shard ain't no good on the black market: it isn't refined yet. You can probably take it to that Tannis lady on the other side of town, she's real into that Eridium stuff, when she ain't acting all hoity toity 'cause she's got a REAL doctorate. Oh and let me know if you're lookin' for work: I got stuff needs doin'."

"…Will do." I said.

As Krieg and I left, I heard the 'doctor' sigh and say "God as my witness: one day, I will find a useable spleen."

I turned to the psycho and said "Krieg, let's make a pact right now: if one of us dies, the other burns the body so that guy doesn't get it."

Krieg, standing straight up, as apposed to his usually hunched over posture, said "Yeah, even I'm not crazy enough to let him near me with a scalpel."

"…Is it weird that I find it creepy when you're not screaming?"

"Ain't exactly my choice to talk like that."

"What do you-"

"Trust me, you don't want to NIPPLE SALAD!" and with that, the madman ran off into the city.

…Well, that happened.

* * *

Whilst trying to find out where 'Tannis' was exactly, I found another tape.

* * *

 _"This is a message to any Crimson Lance left on Pandora. General Knoxx is dead, and knowing the Lance, they're more likely to cut their losses and leave you here than send an extraction ship. So unless you wanna starve to death out there, you've got two options. One: you become bandits. Two: you join me in protecting the people of Sanctuary. I can offer you food, shelter, and the chance to fight for something real, something meaningful, a chance I know the Atlas corporation never gave you. Roland, out."_

* * *

The Crimson Lance, from what I had heard, were a group of mercury's working for the now destroyed Atlas corporation, and fought against Roland's Hunter group; from what I gather from the tapes, it seems most of the Raiders are ex-Lance.

* * *

After asking some people about Tannis, I found out she hangs out at the Crimson Raider HQ, meaning she was probably the person me and the others ignored earlier.

When I got there I ran into- ugh- Axton.

"Soldier boy." I said, coldly.

"Robin hood." He replied.

Nether of us said anything else; we didn't care about each other's business, and we didn't want to spend time in the others company.

We entered the HQ, and I went to talk to the person I assumed to be Tannis.

She had short black hair, with a pair of goggles on her forehead; she was wearing a long red coat, a brown vest… thing, which only covered the upper part of her torso, over a gray shirt; she had black fingerless gloves, brown pants, and brown boots.

As I went to talk to her, she stood up from her chair and started pacing and talking into her ECHO "As I've said, Roland: now that Jack has the Vault key, it's only a matter of time until he opens the Vault! Also, I require a new ventilator, this lab smells of bacon; bacon is for sycophants and the products of incest."

* * *

 **Doctor Patricia Tannis**

 **Insane(ly smart)**

* * *

Axton and I shared a look, before I said "um, are you Doctor Tanni-"

Suddenly turning to us, she said "After hours of scientific insanity you could only imagine in your dreams or my bed- standing offer!- I have deduced that Jack, the Vault key, and the Eridium are all connected on a deeper level!"

"…Um, that's…cool? Uh, Zed said you might have a use for this." I pulled out the Eridium shard, only for Tannis to snatch it before running off to some back room whilst muttering something about… something.

Looking at Axton, I said "Did you understand any of that?"

"All I heard was the 'standing offer'."

"What a surprise: sergeant fuck-boy is thinking with his dick."

"Fuck you kid."

"You two really don't like each other, do you?" said Maya, walking into the HQ.

I shrugged "What can I say? I'm a nerd, he's a jock; rivalry as old as time."

The siren shook her head, before handing us a pair of keys.

"I managed to get us accommodations at an apartment complex nearby; here are your keys."

I grabbed one of the keys and said "Ah, finally! Somewhere to hide myself from the increasingly difficult task of social interaction!"

With that, I turned and walked out of the HQ, saying over my shoulder "If anyone needs me, I'll be at my place."

* * *

After locating the building my new apartment was in (a building that was interesting only for the fact that it was astoundingly uninteresting, having an appearance I would describe as a concrete cube), I made my way to the third floor and found the door that corresponded to the numbers on my key (3-6, for anyone wondering).

Opening the door, I found the apartment to be larger then I had expected; the room the door opened to was a decently large, rectangular area with a beige carpet and ugly blue wallpaper, with a few furnishings, including an old couch facing what looked like what would be a holographic TV screen when activated, a table with a few chairs, a bookshelf, some normal shelves, and some… less the appealing paintings that probably sold for ten a pound at some ECHOnet store.

A relatively small indentation-like part of the room on the right side housed a kitchen, with generic black and white checkerd tile flooring, and the same ugly wallpaper; two doors were in the back of the room, one leading to a small bathroom with just-as-ugly-but-yellow wallpaper and what looked like the same flooring as the kitchen; the other door led to a bedroom with gray wallpaper and blue carpet, a single bed, and a desk with a chair.

The place was… admittedly a shit-hole, but with a bit (…ok, a LOT) of work, I can see it as being quite nice.

I took a shower, placed some personnel belongings from my bag around the place, and looked on the ECHOnet for some new furniture before going to bed.

Tomorrow, I would go in search of one of the most dangerous people on the planet, but for tonight, I can simply rest in my new home.

 _One hour later_

' _Ugh, why the hell I'm I still awake?! Maybe if I read a bit it will help, but only two chapters!'_

 _Three hours and six and a half chapters later_

' _What time is it?... OH, FOR FUCK'S SAKE!'_

* * *

 **Hey.**

 **Yeah, yeah, I know; I've missed two usual upload dates, I'm sorry, I'm not happy with it ether; first it was writer's block, then I wasn't sleeping well, and was too tired to write, then halfway though writing this… well, you saw the dedication at the top; needless to say, my mind's been on things other than this story.**

 **Now, though, I'm mostly back in the writing mood and hope we can get back to a more normal upload schedule for November, but again, sorry.**

 **Anyway, the notes:**

 **1: If anyone is wondering, the blizzard is just there as a reason for the Hunters to explore Sanctuary, and not just go running off to the meeting with the Firehawk.**

 **2: In case you haven't figured it out yet, I have no fucking patience for sexists, racists, homophobes, transphobes, or bigoted fuckwits of any kind; we're all the same bloody species, so let's fucking act like it and get along.**

 **3: Can I just say how much I love Tannis? She's such an awesome character in my eyes, and I want to see more of her when Borderlands 3 eventually comes out (also, as a freak with weirdly selective tastes in food, I completely agree with you, Dr. Tannis).**

 **4: The bit at the end basically sums up why I don't get a lot of sleep; I'm trying to get better at sleeping at a reasonable time, though.**

 **And finally, you're probably wondering about the thing at the end of chapter 7; it was in fact a bit of foreshadowing for what I am about to announce:**

* * *

 **Soon, a tale shall be told.**

 **A tale like… probably a few others you've read before, let's be honest.**

 **It is a tale of horror.**

 **It is a tale of things human kind was nether meant to know about.**

 **It is a tale of men and monsters.**

 **It is…**

 **The Tales of the Awoken**

 **Coming this October (hopefully) to a creepypasta fandom near you.**

* * *

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**

* * *

 _ **THIS SHALL BE VERY, VERY INTERESTING.**_


	9. Firehawk

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder.**

* * *

I think that if there is one thing that the entirety of the human race can agree on, it's that fact that getting up early _sucks_.

After realising that no amount of swearing would get me more sleep, I got out of bed, showered, got dressed, and ate breakfast, before clipping my sword, quiver, shield and ECHO to my belt and leaving my apartment.

As I walked through the city, I grabbed the new copy of 'This Just In!'

* * *

" _This is Hunter Hellquist, of Hyperion Truth Broadcasting, with a message to the Vault Hunters of Sanctuary: thank you. Your continued resistance against Hyperion has assured your own destruction. As Hyperion marches toward a brighter tomorrow, you remain willingly in the past, in the dark. Your own stubbornness will lead to your deaths, and to a better future, for all of us._ "

* * *

Ahh, propaganda, how it angers me so.

I met with the others by the city gates, and noticed that we all had a new addition to our attire: Axton had a small brown and gray camera on his shoulder; Gaige had what looked like a black lunch box, with a skull and cross bones painted on it, on her belt; Krieg had a spare buzzaxe blade with… popsicles painted on it… for reasons that was, again, hanging on his belt; Maya had a book with a weird purple design on it on (you guessed it) her belt; Salvador had gray ammo boxes with an image of a skull with an eye patch and daggers crossed behind it on his belt, and Zer0 had spiked elbow pads that were black and red.

I, myself, had found on the ECHOnet a pair of (in my opinion) stylish black leather fingerless gloves with spikes on the back, you know, for style points and maybe punching people.

Seriously, the spikes on these things are nearly as sharp as my arrows.

"So," I said, rubbing my hands together "who's ready to go find a dangerous bounty hunter who will probably try to kill us?"

* * *

After driving back though the snowy planes from yesterday (Which I now know are called the Tree Horns Divide) we arrived at Frostburn Canyon.

" _The Firehawk should be around here somewhere,_ " said Angel " _stay alert._ "

Walking further into the icy canyon, we saw a group of marauders wearing masks that looked vaguely skull-like to me, with no shirt, orange pants, shoulder pads decorated with spikes on one side and half a buzz saw blade on the other, and a plethora of tattoos showing imagery of eyes.

I went to draw my revolver, but stopped when I saw that they either didn't see us, or were ignoring us, and were running somewhere else whilst firing their guns.

"Who the hell are those guys?" asked Gaige.

"Bloodshots," I said "nasty pieces of work, those fuckers."

" _That's weird…_ " said Angel " _The Bloodshot bandit gang seems to be attacking the Firehawk's lair. They've probably left landmarks for their reinforcements; those should lead you to the Firehawk; that, or just… follow the screaming._ "

Soon, we found the first 'landmark': a psycho, tied to a board with the Bloodshot symbol (a stylised red eye), with one arm tied up to point left.

" _Step off, Vault Hunters!_ " came a new voice from my ECHO; the profile picture showed a man dressed in the torn and bloody clothes of a bandit, with a metal helmet and shoulder pads, both covered in spikes, with a red cloth hanging over his upper face, which had an eye with a Vault arch in place of an iris; his lower face was scarred, with a spiky red beard, lip piercings, and teeth that looked like they had been sharpened to a point; the ID said 'Flanksteak'.

" _This is between the Bloodshots and the Firehawk!_ " said the bandit " _Once my boys bring his ass back to me, he's gonna pay for every Bloodshot he killed; we're gonna string him up from his own freakin' intestines!_ "

"… _Well that was…needlessly graphic._ "

"My thoughts exactly, Angel." Said Maya "So, Dominic, given your earlier comment, I would assume that you know something about the Bloodshots?"

"A thing or two." I said "I don't know when they were founded, but I know that Flanksteak is their leader; sometime after the fall of Atlas, they took over Sanctuary as their base of operations, before the Raiders kicked them out; their current base is a dam in the mountain ranges between Three Horns Valley and the Highlands."

We continued on into the canyon, finding a group of bandits, including some psychos with skulls on their heads.

I fired my revolver at one, hitting him in the arm before I noticed that every one of the skull wearing psychos was covered in gasoline or alcohol, or something similarly flammable.

"Come to me, my pasty cake!" said the burning man as he charged at me, only to be extinguished by a burst of water, and then stabbed in the chest.

Another burning psycho attacked Krieg, rearing his head back before throwing it forwards and somehow _breathing fire_. Krieg laughed as the fire spilled on him, before picking up the smaller man by the head and yelling "MAKE THE OUTSIDE LIKE THE OUTSIDE!" as he ripped off the skull helm and begin tearing at the skin on the psycho's head.

Following the next landmark into a cave, Angel said " _This is unusual; the Firehawk has harassed the Bloodshots for some time, but they have never mounted such a large scale assault on the Firehawk before; I wonder what's given them such confidence?_ "

" _Keep goin' Bloodshots!_ " said Flanksteak on an open channel " _That demonic…_ THING _will rue the god-damn day it messed with us! We're goin' make the Firehawk choke to death on his own faeces!_ "

"… _Dude…ew…_ "

I saw Sal shake his head, and I said "What? Even you find the disgusting?"

"No," said the gunzerker "it's just that he makes it sound like that's easy! Trust me, _amigo_ , it ain't."

We all stopped and looked at the gunslinger (apart from Krieg, who nodded sagely.)

"What?"

"…I think I speak for/" said Zer0 "us all when I say I don't/ even want to know."

Inside the cave, I saw a group of bandits- including some nomads in gasmasks and yellow flame-resistant robes welding flamethrowers- fighting large insects with four legs, un-armoured thoraxes, and heads covered in a thick-looking exoskeleton.

"What are those?" I asked.

"Spiderants," said Sal "They-"

"So it's like a spider and an ant, combined?" I interrupted.

"Uh, yeah, wh-"

I reached over to my ECHO and digistructed the thing I bought from Marcus for just this occasion.

"KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE!" I yelled, charging towards the abominations as I lifted the flamethrower.

After a few minutes, I came back to my senses, panting in the middle of a pile of charred corpses of bandits and… those _things_.

The others approached me slowly, an-

"IT MOVED!" I yelled, unleashing a torrent of fire towards a spinderant body that _definitely moved!_

"…You okay there, dude?" asked Gaige, after a second.

"…Yeah…arthropods freak me the fuck out, especially spiders."

Continuing on, we found a set of stairs leading out of the cave, along with the next landmark.

And then, a jackass happened.

" _You think the Firehawk's got Roland, huh?_ " came the voice of the most annoying man on Pandora " _You know, I heard the Firehawk liquefies bandits and drinks 'em like flesh smoothies, but nah, I'm sure your bandit pal Roland's just fine. Of course, if Roland hadn't been such a dumbass in the first place, he wouldn't have- whoops! Almost spilled the secret!_ "

"FLESH SMOOTHIES GO WELL WITH LEAD SALAD! THE HANDSOME ONE SHALL DRINK AS THE MAIN COURSE IS EATEN THROUGH THE CAT FLAP!"

"Wait," I said "did you just reference Don't Hug M-"

" _Oh, hey there, big guy! The egg heads have been nagging me to get you back to them!_ "

"NEVER GO BACK! I HAVE LEFT THE MEAT MARKET, AND I HAVE BOUGHT ENOUGH BACON!"

"Know what I'm thinkin'?" said Axton "What did Jack mean by 'you think the Firehawk's got Roland?"

"I don't know," replied Maya "But I feel we should be on our guard."

As we went up the stairs, I saw a group of psychos, including two mutant psychos with massive torsos and right arms, normal sized heads and legs, and shrunken left arms.

"SEEEEEEMEN!" one of the mutants yelled, running towards us at surprising speeds.

I dodged to the side as the psycho slammed a massive metal pipe into the ground; I grabbed the pipe and sent an electrical current through it, making the mutant spasm, before pulling out my shotgun and blasting him in the face several times; and, when that wasn't enough, emptying my revolver into his skull.

Meanwhile, Gaige had summoned Deathtrap to deal with the other mutant; the robot slashed the madman across the chest, before flying up to avoid the swing of a over-sized buzzaxe; Deathtrap threw its head forwards, shooting laser blasts at the psycho, stunning it before driving its claws into his head.

After dealing with the rest of the psychos, we left the cave and followed a path through the canyon before finding the next landmark.

" _Let me explain something,_ " said Jack " _Even if you do rescue Roland from this Firehawk guy, the Crimson Raiders ain't exactly long for this world… you know what? I think you deserve a little hint: my secret involves your pathetic resistance dying, and me laughing, heheheh, a lot!_ "

We continued on the path, dealing with a small nest of spiderants before coming to what looked like the forward camp for the Bloodshot offence on the Firehawk; a large, somewhat circular, area with huts and scaffolding surrounding a central fire pit.

As we fought the bandits, I saw a new type of outlaw: muscular guys in yellow shirts, with yellow cargo pants and black boots, duel wielding assault rifles; the most notable thing about them, however, was their skull helmets, which were carved with eye symbols; I remembered that in the game they were called 'Goliaths'.

"Punch your skull into your tum-tum!" yelled one, in a dopey sounding voice as he fired at us.

"Heh, look at this idiot." Said Axton, before taking aim, with a Vladof assault rifle, at the massive bandit.

" _Amigo,_ don't-" said Sal, seeing where Axton was aiming.

The bullet hit the goliath's helmet, knocking it off and revealing a small head that looked like it was melting into the torso.

"-shoot the helmet off." Finished Salvador, beginning to look worried.

The bandits all ran away from the goliath, all yelling some form of "It's loose!" as the mutant bandit threw down his guns and roared, his skull coming out of his head, using the spine like a tendril.

"Mistake! BIG GODDAMN MISTAKE!" yelled the mutant, all traces of dopey-ness gone from his voice and replaced with rage as his skin turned red.

The goliath grabbed a psycho who wasn't smart enough to flee, tearing her head off and holding her above him to drink the blood that spilled out, before throwing her corpse down and yelling "More DEATH!"

"Ok, what's the deal with these guys?!" asked Gaige, firing at the mutant with a Dahl SMG.

"When the helmets come off," Sal explained "They get angry; the more they kill, the angrier they get; the angrier they get, the stronger they get!"

The goliath roared again, only to be silenced as the back and front of his skull imploded and exploded respectively; Zer0 turned visible behind the mutant, his blade imbedded in its skull, before pressing the button on the hilt, un-digistructing the blade, allowing the bandit to fall as he huffed and said "Weak." as a holographic red '0' appeared in front of his helmet.

After wiping out the bandits in the camp, we continued on, finding another cave, this time with numerous dead bandits outside, as well as the next landmark.

" _This is it,_ " said Angel " _the Firehawk's hideout; be careful, friends; there are bound to be traps everywhere._ "

Further into the cave, I saw a bandit get set on fire by a wall-mounted flamethrower.

" _See? Traps; don't let that happen to you._ "

A mutant psycho charged out from the tunnel in front of us, but was easily dealt with by our combined fire.

As the mutant began to fall, Axton rushed forwards and slammed his tomahawk into the psycho's stomach, before ripping it out and stuffing a grenade in the hole and kicking the madman away from him before it exploded.

He held his hand out for a high-five as I approached, but I ignored him and brushed passed.

"What?" he said, incredulously "You can NOT tell me that wasn't cool!"

"It was cool," I said "but it was also reckless, unnecessary, potentially fatal, and to top it off, I don't like or respect you in any way."

We went further into the corpse-littered cave, dealing with a second mutant (this time without any of Axton's bullshit), avoided flamethrower traps, and crossed thin bridges over spike filled pits, before finding a landmark.

An earthquake shook the cave, nearly making Sal fall back into the aforementioned pit.

" _Feel that?_ " said Jack " _The sound of those earthquakes marks my drills getting closer and closer to the Vault! That's the sound of progress, baby!_ "

Deciding to ignore the megalomaniac, we came to what looked like a storage room with a pair of vending machines, which we used to resupply, before continuing on.

We entered a large, cavernous room with platforms hanging down from the ceiling; we could hear gunshots and see flashes of purple light coming from the central platform.

Following the scaffolding to the platform, we saw it was circular, with a large number of computer screens and several boxes scattered around; two smaller platforms with red canopies over them, came off from the main one.

Standing on the platform were two large bandits, but before I could see them in much detail, what looked like an ember flew down from the ceiling and landed behind them, somehow causing a fiery explosion.

When the smoke cleared, there was a woman kneeling where the ember hit with large wings that seemed to be made of fire, and she was glowing orange.

The woman stood, the wings and glow fading; she was 5'7 and had chin-length red hair that flared out to her right, with the tips dyed pink; she was wearing a red sleeveless top that left part of her midriff exposed, under a heavily torn sleeveless jacket; she had fingerless gloves and several arm bands, and was wearing ripped chaps (cowboy pants) with pouches and a ripped yellow cloth on her belt, and brown boots with metal reinforcements on the front.

The most notably thing about her, however, were the tattoos that could be seen on every part of exposed skin on her left side, which were glowing yellowish-orange, but quickly faded to blue.

"Sup." said the siren.

* * *

 **Lilith**

 **Aka the Firehawk**

* * *

Without warning, the siren fell to the ground.

As we approached cautiously, she said "How ya doin'. The bandits call me the Firehawk, but the name's Lilith. I'm with the Raiders, like you. I keep the bandits in line so Roland can focus on taking down Jack. Anyway, long story, lots of internal bleeding; could you help me up?"

Maya helped Lilith to her feet, before asking "Are you alright?"

"I need a pick-me-up." She said, standing hunched over "Get me some eridium, will ya? I should have some in one of my strong boxes."

I looked around, seeing the box in question on one of the side platforms; I blinked over to it, opening the box to find a nugget of eridium.

I blinked back to the siren, handing her the nugget.

"How did you…? Never mind, ask later." She took the nugget; the nugget seemed to start shrinking as Lilith began to glow purple, and her eyes and tattoos glowed orange.

"Ahh, thanks." She said, standing up straight "Bet you're looking for Roland, huh? He's not here; the Bloodshot grabbed him. Made 'em cocky too; they've never came after me this hard."

I could see Maya start to say something, but before she could, an explosion destroyed the roof above one of the side platforms, and I heard a bandit yell "They're in here! GET 'EM!"

"Heh, now the real fun begins. I'll see if I can't Phaseblast a few of 'em for ya." Said Lilith, before disappearing in a burst of purple light.

Psychos began pouring into the cave as we scattered and started firing on them.

A group of psychos rushed me, prompting me to take out my SMG; the corrosive rounds hit them, making acid fly everywhere; one managed to survive long enough to reach me, only for a lightning coated fist to slam into his head, stunning him for long enough for me to draw my revolver and blast his head off.

Salvador was surrounded by madmen, pointing his Torgue rifles all around him to stop them from coming closer.

"I wonder if I plant you in the ground, if you'll grow taller?" taunted one of the psychos; Salvador screamed in rage before firing in all directions whilst yelling "I'M NOT A FUCKING MIDGET! I'M FIVE FOOT _FUCKING_ FOUR!"

Throughout the fight, Lilith would randomly appear in a blast of differing elemental effects, before disappearing again.

Eventually, some marauders joined the party; Axton took cover behind a box as a pair of bandits fired on him; he threw his turret box behind their cover, the turret killing one and driving the other out of cover, and right into the commando's sights.

"Watch out, Badasses!" yelled Lilith, as a pair of mutant psychos came through the at this point numerous holes in the ceiling.

Zer0 shot one of the psychos with his sniper rifle, but the mutant's reinforced skull resisted the bullet; the madman dropped his buzzaxe and used his giant arm to grab a nearby box and threw it at the hitman, only for it to pass through the holographic decoy, and for the real Zer0 to appear in front of him; the mutant wasn't fast enough to dodge as the assassin leaped into the air and sliced his throat open.

The other psycho swung a club at Gaige, which she grabbed with her cyborg arm; she punched the mutant in the face with her human arm, but the madman was seemingly unaffected, shouting "Look into my eyes when I stare at you!"

Gaige pulled her fist back and hit the psycho again, this time leaving him a gift: a sticky grenade; the madman reared back, dropping his club and trying to pull the explosive off his mask; Gaige backed away from the mutant before pulling out her pistol and yelling "Buh-bye!" before shooting the grenade, detonating it along with most of the psycho's upper body.

Lilith appeared in the middle of the platform once more, huffing and panting as she said "Well, that was fun, feeling tapped out, though; could you get me another hunk of eridium?"

After Zer0 had brought her the nugget, and she had absorbed it, she said "ahhh, yeah; since the Vault opened, my siren powers have been getting a little… awesome, thanks to this eridium stuff, no idea why. Now, let's talk about rescuing my boyfriend… well, ex-boyfriend."

Lilith went over to one of the computers, pulling up information on the Bloodshots, the Vault, and Jack "Before the Bloodshots grabbed him, Roland was getting intel on the Vault, and what Jack plans to do with it. You have to find him. I gotta head back to Sanctuary, keep the city in one piece while Roland's away." She turned away from the computer and towards us "But first, I'm gonna teleport you into the Bloodshot stronghold; that's where they're keeping Roland. You'll catch 'em by surprise and have a real advantage, it'll be great. Hold still."

She begin to glow purple again and pointed at us, before clicking her fingers; purple light obscured my vision, and I held up my hands to shield my eyes.

When the light faded, and I lowered my hands…

We were still in Lilith's lair, on a side platform disconnected from the rest.

The siren turned to look at us from the central platform, and said "…I just moved you, like, ten feet, didn't I?"

"Dude, I could do better then that." I said.

"Can it, Nightcrawler."

"ohh, Marvel comics reference, I like you."

"Anyway, sorry, I'm still getting used to this. Reminds me, though; Bloodshot Stronghold is full of real tough customers; you might wanna train a bit before you take 'em on; you're doing good out there, keep it up."

She pointed to Maya and said "And you; when you guys get done rescuing Roland, you and me have got to talk." and with that, she disappeared.

We followed a path out of the cave, before heading out to do odd jobs and train our skills.

* * *

 **The good news: we don't have to fight the Firehawk, who can bend the fabric of reality with her thoughts.**

 **The bad news: we have to fight a bandit clan at the seat of their power.**

 **Anyway, notes:**

 **1: For anyone who doesn't know the class mods off the top of their heads, the ones I have given the Hunters are: Axton's** _ **Rifleman**_ **mod; Gaige's** _ **Anarchist**_ **Mod; Krieg's** _ **Sickle**_ **mod; Maya's** _ **Matriarch**_ **mod; Salvador's** _ **Raider**_ **mod; Zer0's** _ **Ninja**_ **mod, and my/Dom's class mod (the gloves) I shall call the** _ **Templar**_ **mod; look at the Borderlands wiki if you want to know what they do.**

 **2: Since Salvador is the only Vault Hunter confirmed to have been born and raised on Pandora, I imagine him as being the one who explains the different creatures and bandits to the others.**

 **3: I am ashamed to admit that until writing this, I somehow didn't notice that the tips of Lilith's hair are pink; I mean, I noticed that they were dyed, but it somehow didn't click in my head as being pink.**

 **4: Just mentioning, Tales of the Awoken is up now; if you're a fan of Creepypasta, you might want to check it out.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	10. Getting Technical

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder.**

* * *

I'm saying it now: the bandit who decided that bandits needed to make their own guns can go fuck themselves.

Ok, context: so after Lilith said we needed to train up before going to the Bloodshot Stronghold, we headed out to do a few odd jobs in and around Sanctuary, including taking out some assassins that Jack hired to track down Lilith after he got suspicious she might have faked her death (hey, for once he got something right), fixing the steam pump that powered the now-abandoned Happy Pig Motel, allowing us access to a new fast-travel station, and helped out a postal service whose manager had a… questionable idea of prosthetics.

* * *

" _That's what I wanted to see! Unfortunately, you're fired, 'cause Dino's recovered enough to get back on his route."_

" _I haven't recovered! You just duct-taped my legs to these pogo sticks!"_

" _Fit as a fiddle, he is!"_

* * *

…Moving on, Zed managed to rope us in to investigating an old rival of his, a nomad named Doc Mercy; whilst fighting the bandit, we saw that he had an unusual gun; it seemed to be a bandit-made LMG, but fired laser blasts.

After dealing with the bandit, we grabbed his gun, finding it to be an 'E-Tech' gun- a gun that used eridium-based technology for all sorts of weird effects.

Zed asked us to use the gun on the local bandits to test the effects, and I, wishing to fire this glorious thing, volunteered.

I wish I hadn't.

This 'super advanced, high-tech' gun did stupidly low amounts of damage, didn't know the meaning of accuracy, and despite having a magazine the size of my fucking head, it ran out of ammo in _seconds_!

After _somehow_ managing to kill some bandits with the piece of shit, Zed called us and said " _Alright, after watching you blast those bandits with that E-Tech gun, I've come to a medically sound conclusion: E-Tech is friggin' dope. Come on back to me whenever you're done out there._ "

I put the so-called 'BlASSter' in my ECHO, and said "When we get back to the city, I'm scrapping this thing for parts and building something that's actually useful out of it."

"I believe that we/ might be ready to attack/ the Bloodshot Stronghold." said Zer0.

* * *

After getting back in our cars, we drove to the Bloodshot Stronghold, a massive dam with an outer wall made of scrap metal, with imagery of eyes painted in blood visible all around.

" _Huh,_ " said Lilith, as we approached " _Nobody seems to be around… just drive up and honk your horn; maybe this won't be so hard after all._ "

Maya drove up to the gate and honked; we heard a bandit yell "Yeah, yeah, I'm openin' the gate!"

A part of the wall began to lower into the ground, before a familiar voice joined in.

" _Hold it, idiots!_ " yelled Flanksteak " _That don't look like one of our Technicals! They're here for our hostage; get 'em!_ "

The gate raised up as bandits climbed over the wall and a pair of machine gun turrets appeared.

After dealing with the bandit defences, Gaige said "Sooooo… what now?"

My ECHO chimed, telling me I had a call from Scooter.

" _You ain't getting' in the dam that way, peppernip!_ " said the mechanic.

"Wait," I said, confused "what's a peppernip? And how did you know what we were doing, anywa-"

" _The Bloodshots ain't lettin' you in without a truck like theirs. Go see my kin out in The Dust; she'll hook you up with some skeevy-lookin' wheels!_ "

He sent us map data leading to The Dust; after finding the abandoned highway it mentioned on the map (which was actually right next to the dam), he said " _Ellie's way out in bandit country; be careful out there, amigos, I mean it._ "

I pulled up the holo menu on my ECHO and turned to the map page.

"Whoa," I said, zooming out "this road goes on for ever- we'll be driving for hours!"

Gaige smirked at me from the driver's seat "Hey, least you've got good company!"

"And good music." I replied, switching to the music tab and pressing shuffle.

After a few minutes of comfortable silence, I said "Sooo, Gaige…"

"Yeah, Blondie?"

"I… have a question that… may-or-may-not be awkward…"

"What?"

I fidgeted in my seat "Well, it's… about your arm…"

"What," she lifted her organic right arm "This? It's just a normal arm, what's to know?"

"N-no, I mean more… like, uh… w-what I'm trying to say-"

She snorted "Chill, dude; I know what you're asking and it's cool."

"W-why didn't you just say that then?!"

"Eh, you're cute when you're flustered."

"Ah-wh-um-uh… you're a prick, mate."

"Isn't 'mate' used for male friends?"

"Usually, but I just use it for any of my friends; besides, isn't 'dude' usually used by guys?"

"Fair enough. Anyway, my arm; if you're expecting me to tell you I lost the first one in a lab accident or something, sorry to disappoint, but it wasn't like that."

"What, then?"

"Ok, so when I was first building Deathtrap - wait, didn't you say you listened to my ECHOcasts? Shouldn't you know this?"

"Eh, only since, like, a mouth ago; haven't had time to go through the older ones."

"Oh, ok, anyway, so when I was working on DT, I built a digistruct spawning rod for it, but it-it was big! And ugly! And heavy as shit! Anyway, so I was working on Deathtrap and I cut my self with some sheet metal; not, like deep or anything, only halfway to the bone-" (She ignored my shouts of 'not deep?!') "- and I have a thought: I COULD inject myself with Insta-Health and get back to trying to circumventing the Turing chip with a Hecker circuit reintegrator, OR… I could build a cybernetic limb with DT's digistruct data in it so I could summon it any time, anywhere! So, I sliced off my arm with a particle saw!"

"WHAT?!"

"Yep! Few hours and a few pints of blood later, I had this baby on me."

"…Where were you when you did this, exactly?"

"Same place I did all my tinkering: the shed in the back yard."

I stared down at her from the turret seat in shock for a few seconds, before saying "So you mean to tell me… that you, without seeking any form of medical or professional help… cut off you arm… and then, AFTER cutting your arm off, and WHILST bleeding out, built a fully functional cyborg limb… in a garden shed… on a whim?!"

"Yeah, why?" she said, completely calm.

"…I… I just… I can't… Ho-HOW THE BALLS ARE YOU STILL ALIVE?"

The mechromancer shrugged "Eh, too hot to die."

' _Well, she isn't wrong- WAIT, WHAT? NO! Shut up, brain! You've known her for, like, a week! WHY DO YOU GET LIKE THIS AROUND REDHEADS?'_

"Dude? Duuude? Pandora to Blondie!"

"Eh, sorry, what?" I said, trying to hide my blush.

"You spaced out there for a sec, you alright?"

"Oh, yeah, sorry; tends to happen when I'm sitting down."

"Why?"

"I'm a kinetic thinker; I find it easier to concentrate when I'm moving."

"Huh, weird."

"To-fucking-right I am." I said, causing her to laugh.

"Hey," I said, having a thought "Why _were_ you building Deathtrap in the first place?"

Now, I've never been good at noticing body language (with the exception of the cute little balls of love and fluff known as dogs), but even I saw Gaige tense up.

"Gaige? You alright?" I asked, concerned.

"…Let's just say that it involved my first kill, unintentional or not, and leave it there."

After a few seconds, she seemed to shake off what ever was bothering her and said "So anyway, what about you?"

"Uh, what do you mean?"

"Hey, I gave you details about my past, now it's my turn."

Shit.

Ok, real talk here; it's not like I don't want to tell, at least, Gaige about my past, but… well, how do I talk about it without sounding crazy?

' _Ok, I'll need to tread carefully; mix the truth with the unfortunately necessary lies.'_

"W-well, what do you want to know?"

"I don't know… where are you from?"

"Earth."

"Whoa, really?" she said, sounding surprised "That place as filled with corporate greed as everyone says?"

"You don't know the half of it, mate." _'Both in this universe and mine.'_

"So… what's a guy from the home world doing on a shithole six galaxies away?"

"It's… complicated."

"Complicated 'complicated', or complicated 'I don't want to talk about it'?"

"Seventy-five percent column A, twenty-five percent column B; I want to tell you, it's just… It's been three months and I still don't know what exactly happened, and I don't know how to explain what I do know without making people wonder whether I'm off my rocker or my tits- whether I'm mad or high." I added, seeing her confused look "Look, the second I know enough to explain this shit, you'll be the first to know; I don't have a lot of friends, and I don't want to keep the ones I have in the dark longer then necessary."

She frowned, then sighed and said "Fine; you want to be all mysterious, you can be, just don't keep me wanting for answers."

Before I could respond, a new song started playing from my ECHO, one that made her turn and give me a funny look.

"What?" I asked.

"…Classical music? Really, Blondie?" she replied.

"Guy can't like two kinds of music?" I said, before starting to hum along to Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_.

"You're a freakin' weirdo, dude." She laughed.

"You do realise I take that as a complement, right?"

We continued to talk as we drove, the snow beneath the tires fading as we approached the desert.

* * *

After a few hours, including a short stop at a Quick-Change Station to change out of our winter outfits and back into our normal clothes, we had reached The Dust.

"Holy shit, it's hot." I said, taking off my cloak and putting it in my ECHO.

" _This is nothing,_ amigo _."_ Said Salvador " _This place can get a whole lot hotter; be glad you came here in the first year of summer._ "

" _Wait, year?_ " inquired Axton.

" _Pandora has a ten year orbital cycle,_ " informed Maya " _Three years of summer, seven years of winter._ "

We continued driving down the ruined road- probably built back when the Dahl corporation first colonised the planet for their mining operations- until we saw a scrap yard with a sign that said 'Ellie's Garage'.

Entering the scrap yard, we saw an overweight woman with short red hair, dressed in an orange shirt under a set of overalls, with leather gloves and red sneakers; I idly noticed that she had a heart tattoo on her chest that looked oddly similar to Moxxi's.

She was facing what looked like one of those machines they have in scrap yards for smashing cars up, and I heard someone yelling from inside.

"I SHOULDA KILLED YOUR FAT ASS WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE!" a man's voice yelled, as the machine started moving

"Sorry, what was that?" said the woman, her accent confirming my theory that this was the family member Scooter mentioned. "You gotta speak up!"

And with that, the entrance of the machine slammed shut as I heard the piston inside crash down, causing a blood to shower out of the machine.

* * *

 **Ellie**

 **Likes: cuddling, murder**

* * *

"Heh, that was awesome." She turned, noticing us for the first time and saying "Oh, howdy! I didn't see ya there! Name's Ellie. My brother Scooter told me you was comin'! Don't get many visitors around here, especially not ones so cute."

"Oh, well, thanks!" I said "…Uh, did Scooter tell you what we needed? 'Cause he didn't tell us."

"Tryin' ta rescue your pal Roland from the dam, right? I betcha could fool those Bloodshots if you drove up in one of their custom trucks. I got one right over yonder that I…" she turned and pointed…

Right at the car crusher.

"…Crushed with the driver still inside…my bad."

"I… feel the need to ask," said Maya "What, exactly, did he do to earn such a fate?"

The mechanic shrugged and said "Called me a fat cow, among other things."

"Ugh, body shamers," I said "why the hell can't our species get along?"

"Great!" said Axton "So because of your fuck up, we don't have a way into the dam! Fan-fuckin'-tastic!"

"Wow, Axton," I said "Way to blame someone for an honest mistake, real mature, go you."

"You know, one of these days you're gonna wake up to the sight of my turret."

"And one of these days I'm going to stick an arrow in your 'privates', Soldier Boy."

"…Why was there an emphasis on privates?"

"One, I'm surprised you know the word 'emphasis'; two, it… was meant to be a military rank joke… it worked better in my head."

"Blondie's sense of humour aside," said Gaige, turning to Ellie "you got any ideas on how to get in to the dam?"

"Well," she replied "I got a vanilla Technical in the shop and most of the parts we need; just gotta doll it up with some more of the bandits trimmin's- spikes, blood, skulls, that kinda thing. You could probably scavenge that stuff from the bandit patrols around here."

"So," said Sal "what you're saying is we need to go blow up bandit cars?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

Before we could even blink, the gunzerker was running back to the cars whilst yelling "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU _PUTAS_ WAITING FOR?"

* * *

After deciding to split up to cover more ground (and getting a call from Scooter where he threatened to set us on fire if we made fun of his sister's weight), we had left the garage and began searching for bandit cars, and a few minutes later, we were engaged in a fire fight with one.

"Stop ramming them!" I yelled down at Gaige, as I continued to fire back at the bandits with the machine gun turret "Their car is significantly heavier! You're just pissing them off and throwing off my ai- GRENADE!"

Gaige swerved to avoid the grenade thrown by one of the marauders in the back of the pickup truck- and rammed them again in the process.

"What did I JUST say?!"

"Ok, how about you focus on shooting, and I focus on NOT CRASHING IN TO A ROCK!"

I fired the turret again, killing one of the psychos hanging off the side, but not seeming to do much damage to the car.

"Ugh, this isn't working!" said Gaige "We need a plan."

I thought for a moment, before saying "If you can get us behind them, I coul-"

Before I could finish, the engineer slammed her foot on to the brakes, slowing us down and putting us behind the bandits.

"What ever you're going to do, do it!"

I half stood in my seat, before pulling one of my grenades out.

Now, normally, throwing a grenade into a car in front of you would be pretty hard- you're both going forwards at a fast pace, and most people can't throw something faster then a car- but, well THESE aren't normal grenades.

I hurled the explosive, and after flying forwards a few feet…

It vanished.

Not even a second later, there was a flash as the grenade reappeared in the bed of the bandit truck, before the whole thing exploded.

Gaige stopped the car next to the wreckage, and said "You… have teleporting grenades?"

"Not quite;" I tapped the grenade mod on my belt "Hyperion Longbow grenades have the same kind of tech in them that allow spaceships to move at FTL speeds; obviously, being so small, they can't go anywhere near the speed of light, but it's still stupidly fast."

* * *

After looting the destroyed car and blowing up a couple more, we returned to Ellie's garage to find the others waiting for us.

"Finally!" said Axton, throwing his hands in the air "What the hell took you so long?"

"Well maybe we fought more before coming back, instead of chickening out after the first two." Said Gaige, earning her a high five from yours truly.

We entered the garage, finding Ellie fixing up a broken bandit truck.

"Got yer car ready over here." she said "Let's make some modifications and you'll be good to go!"

About half any hour later (a time Gaige and I spent playing a co-op game I had on my ECHO) Ellie had repaired the car and used the things we scavenged from the bandit patrols to make it look like a Bloodshot car.

"Alright, lookin' good!" she said "Now we just gotta get it in the Catch-A-Ride system."

She walked over to a C.A.R in the back of the garage and pressed some buttons, before the platform the car was on raised up and a machine in the roof scanned and un-digistructed the car.

"Groovy!" she said "Now you can 'struct one of those bandit-lookin' things from any of my brother's Catch-A-Rides. Come back and see me sometime, you sumbitchs."

I looked at the car on the terminal; the 'Bandit Technical' could come equipped with a sawblade launcher or a catapult that fired barrels full of gasoline; additionally, there was room in the bed of the truck for two people.

Before heading out we checked our guns, and I took the time to note what the others had; Axton had a Vladof _Renegade_ assault rifle, a Jakobs _Scattergun_ shotgun, and a Dahl _Negotiator_ pistol; Zer0 had a Maliwan _Jericho_ sniper rifle, a Hyperion _Leverage_ pistol, and a Tediore _Sportsman_ shotgun; Maya had a Hyperion _Energizer Beam_ laser, a Dahl _Scorpion_ SMG, and a Torgue _Lance_ assault rifle; Salvador had a pair of assault rifles, a Torgue _Torpedo_ and a Bandit _Mashine Gun_ , along with a Vladof _Fighter_ pistol; Gaige had a Hyperion _Storm_ SMG, a Vladof _Anarchist_ pistol (how appropriate), and a Bandit _Room Clener_ shotgun; Krieg had a Jakobs _Bushwack_ shotgun, a Bandit _KA-BOOOOM!_ grenade launcher, and Flynt's unique Bandit flamethrower, _Dragon's Breath_ ; I had a Jakobs _Widow Maker_ revolver, a Hyperion _Thinking_ shotgun, and a Maliwan _Venom_ SMG.

We got in our cars, with Car One having Maya in the driver's seat, Krieg on the barrel launcher, and Gaige and I in the back; Car Two had Axton driving, with Zer0 on the sawblade launcher and Sal in the back.

As we left, I heard Ellie shout "Good luck! And tell Scooter to stop settin' my customers on fire! I can take care of myself!"

Glancing at the car crusher, I thought _'Of that, I don't doubt.'_

* * *

 _ **Somewhere**_

A woman sat in a dark room, surrounded by computer equipment the average hacker would pay an arm and a leg for.

Of course, Morgana was not your average hacker.

Around her, the screens displayed stock market information, feeds from hidden cameras from here to Promethea, and private message conversations from the rich and powerful of the universe; however, the screen the currently held the hacker's attention was the security camera feed from a Catch-A-Ride station in the desert.

Her ECHO started ringing, and she tapped the Accept Call button without looking over to see who it was; there was only one person who had her personal number.

" _Mori!_ " came the voice of the Burned Queen " _How's it goin'?_ "

"I'm doing good, mistress." She replied "My projects are coming along nicely."

" _Good, tell me what you've learned._ "

"Well, I'm making progress in getting into Hyperion's systems; I estimate I'll be inside in a few weeks."

" _What about our mystery friend?_ "

"Still nothing; I know she's in contact with the Vault Hunters, but whenever I try to hack her signal, that whore blocks me out."

" _Ohh, someone's pissed._ "

"That bitch thinks she's a better hacker then me; I'll show her; no ones better then Morgana!"

" _You mentioned the Hunters, what are those little fuckwits up to?_ "

"From what I've gathered, they've been setting up a raid on the Bloodshot Stronghold."

" _Really? Those weirdoes? Is it connected to whatever's been making them so aggressive lately?"_

"Yes, and I've found out what it is: they've captured Roland."

" _ROLAND?! As in, leader of the Crimson fuckers Roland?_ "

"Yes."

"… _Get back in to the Bloodshot's network; we're going to give them and the Hunters a surprise._ "

Morgana smiled at her boss's words.

' _This is going to be fun.'_

* * *

 **Hello!**

 ***Jumps out of the way of the missiles***

 **Yes, yes, I know I'm late by a long time, I had writer's block… also I got XCOM 2 for my birthday, and fuck that thing's addictive.**

 **Anyway, let's get to the notes:**

 **1: I'll be putting these gun-checking scenes in around every five or ten chapters from now on; as anyone who's played Borderlands should know, you'll end up changing your gear a lot, so I just want to keep you guys up to date.**

 **2: Random thing, but whenever I hear** _ **Crazy=Genius**_ **by Panic! At The Disco, I think of Gaige; maybe it's just the title, but I think it suits her.**

 **3: It seems our favourite bandit warlord is planning something. What diabolical plot could she have?! Find out next time on DRAGON BALL- wait, one of my helper kobolds just told me that I don't own that, this fanfic isn't that, and I've already been sued.**

 **4: For anyone interested in Tales of the Awoken, I've decided that it shall be a side project to this story, and will be updated MUCH less frequently.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	11. A Dam Fine Rescue

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-** **graphic murder and threats of rape.**

* * *

Ever since my arrival on Pandora, I've heard the bandits say some pretty dumb stuff; what, I hear you ask, was the stupidest thing I've heard from one?

" _Looks like one of ours, let 'em in while I try to get Hyperion back on the horn!_ "

Flanksteak didn't know it at the time, but with this statement…

He done fucked up.

We drove into the bandit's car park before we revealed ourselves, firing our guns at every outlaw in sight until the area was empty.

Alarms started blaring after someone figured out that there was too much gunfire for it to be just the regular infighting, and we could hear shouting from further into the shantytown.

I climbed out of the car just in time to see Maya do a handstand on one of the bars on the car's side as she jumped out.

"That was unnecessary… but cool." I said.

"OH COME ON!" yelled Axton.

"Hey, she isn't in my bad books for being an arsehole." I replied, smirking.

We ran into the base, heading towards the dam whilst fighting the Bloodshot forces.

Krieg charged forwards, screaming incoherently as he hurled his buzzaxe at a marauder firing from behind cover; the bandit dodged the axe before it could hit them, but fell moments later as Maya's laser burned through their skull.

We reached the side of the dam, finding a large gouge between it and the camp, with a face on the dam made with a pair of red lights for eyes, large bars of metal for angry eyebrows, and a drawbridge for a mouth.

" _We got intruders!_ " yelled Flanksteak " _GET 'EM, BAD MAW!_ "

The bridge began to lower, but before it was fully down, a figure jumped off it and landed in front of us.

He was a nomad, with red and grey robes; in place of the usual mask, he had a cloth face mask covering the lower half of his face, and a hood that looked like a turtle shell in shape, leaving only his nose visible, and he carried a massive shield that looked like it was fashioned out of a car door.

He pointed at us-

* * *

 **Bad Maw**

* * *

Before slamming his shield down in front of him, showing a trio of little people in psycho masks chained to the front.

* * *

… **And his merry midgets!**

* * *

The nomad drew a shotgun from his back, and began firing at us.

We dived for cover… well, the others did; I blinked behind the mutant and fired my shotgun at his back; the bullets hit him, but he didn't seem to care as he turned around and slammed his shield into me.

I blinked before he could shoot me, reappearing behind a crate and drawing my revolver.

"Zer0!" I yelled over the ECHO "Aim for the chains! When he hit me, I saw that the guys on his shield are covering a hole."

The hitman nodded, before cloaking and making his way to the roof of a nearby building; after taking cover behind a chimney, the assassin drew his _Jericho_ ; a sleek, futuristic-looking white, black and orange sniper rifle with an extended barrel and glowing red lines running down its body.

Zer0 fired the rifle three times, destroying the chains and letting the psycho dwarfs free.

We concentrated our fire on the hole in the shield, and, even with the fact that nomads are some of the hardiest of the mutant races out there, the bandit still fell after a few seconds.

After dealing with the psychos, we grabbed a key from his body, which was inserted into a hole in the middle of a weird metal decoration shaped like an eye inside a spiked wheel.

The drawbridge lowered, and as we walked across, I looked up at the face on the wall and said to no one in particular "Anyone else thinking of the phrase 'belly of the beast'?"

* * *

Inside, we found what looked like a garage, with several Technicals and Outrunners, along with some kind of bus; every surface was covered in rust, blood, and urine, which matched pretty well with the information coming from my nose; from here, I could hear what sounded like the dam's turbines, a constant hum, occasionally interrupted as the old, and presumably uncared for, machinery ground against something.

" _You're in?_ " said Lilith " _Great. Roland should be around here somewhere. I'm sure you can handle yourselves, but if anything happens to Roland… make sure nothing happens to Roland._ "

"The fuck?" I heard Axton mutter; looking other, I saw him looking at a image of Marcus, painted on the wall in blood, with the words 'GUN BRINGER' underneath.

"That's… interesting and in no way creepy." I said.

Continuing forwards, we found a room with a large portion of the floor lowered down and filled with knee-high water (at least, I _hope_ its water).

There were several bandits in the room, looking as if we had run in when they were setting up defences; among them were a new kind of bandit- Bruisers; tall and heavily muscled, they wore cargo pants (Ok, what the hell is this planet's obsession with cargo pants?), combat boots, metal gauntlets, and masks made from haphazardly welded together pieces of scrap metal.

"Look out!" yelled one of them, pointing an assault rifle at us, as we entered the room "Mercs!"

Axton fired his rifle, taking down a pair of marauders before taking out his axe and slamming it into the head of a charging psycho; the commando then drew his pistol and fired, using the psycho corpse as a human shield as he yelled "I got some for EVERYBODY!"

" _Look here Hyperion,_ " came Flanksteak's voice - it seemed the bandit lord had left the intercom system running, broadcasting his voice across the base " _I'm not askin' much for Roland! A million bucks! Hello…? This thing on?_ "

" _You handling the Bloodshot alright?_ " said Lilith " _They've been trying to take Roland out ever since he kicked their asses out of Sanctuary; I shoulda seen it coming._ "

In the next room, we found an ECHO tape on the table; playing the tape revealed what sounded like Marcus doing a template and adding in names later.

* * *

" _Dear [Roland]. I can't help but notice the [Bloodshots] you are fighting pack some seeeeerious firepower; if you are going to have a chance against them, you'll need to up your arsenal. You could always arm your men with some high-quality munitions from my store. If you buy from me, those [Bloodshots] will be dead in no time!"_

* * *

"Why do the Bloodshots have this?" wondered Salvador.

"Probably took it off Roland when they grabbed him." said Gaige.

The next room appeared to be a turbine room; water poured into the room from the right, turning a group of large turbines before flowing out through drain pipes to the left; we stood on one of two raised platforms above the waterways, with a pair of bridges connecting the two.

Maya dove behind cover, narrowly avoiding the shots of a shield-carrying nomad; when her laser failed to cut through his shield, the siren Phaselocked him, smirking before moving the mutant's head into the turbine, decapitating him.

Moving onwards, we found a hallway where part of the ice wall around Three Horns had collapsed, smashing through the dam wall (pun intended).

A trio of psycho stood in the room, two of them holding grenades; this proved to be their downfall when I shot one in the hand.

In short: boom.

" _Ok, Hyperion,_ " said Flanksteak, still unaware we could hear him " _a hundred thousand bucks for Roland! Final offer! ECHO me back and let's negotiate, already!_ "

" _Hyperion wants Roland,_ bad _"_ stated Lilith " _Even if they don't buy him from the Bloodshots, they'll be coming for him; you'd better hurry._ "

We came to a large open room where the Bloodshots had set up barricades, which we were prepared for.

What we weren't prepared for, however, was the turret gun that one of the bandits was manning.

We scrambled for cover as bullets started flying from the machine gun, barely avoiding becoming Swiss cheese.

I leaned out to take a pot shot at the turret, but had to abandon that plan as my Shield was nearly broken before I could pull the trigger.

"Anyone got a plan for-" I started, before remembering something "…oh, right, I'm Nightcrawler."

After my Shield charged, I leaned out long enough to get an idea of where I was going, before blinking behind the turret.

"What?! Where'd he go?!" the gunner said, moments before I drove a sword into his neck.

I pulled his body off the turret, before sitting on it myself and turning the gun on the bandits.

After they were dealt with, I stared down at the turret and sighed "If only I had my tools… I could take this thing off its base and mess with the firing mechanism so Krieg could lug it around, blasting bandits with unparalleled force and-"

Gaige grabbed my cloak with her cyborg arm and dragged me off the gun "Blondie, I like going evil genius on machines as much as the next girl, but I'm going to stop you before you try to stick your dick in it."

"Yeah, you want him to stick it somewhere else, don't you?" laughed Axton.

Without missing a beat, Gaige drew her pistol and shot him in the back of the head.

The commando stumbled forwards, before turning to glare at the mechroamcer.

"See," said Gaige "that's the good thing about Shields; you can shoot your asshole teammates without them dying!"

Krieg looked down at his shotgun, then at Zer0, then back to the shotgun.

Zer0 reached over, grabbing the gun and pointing it away from him and said "Don't."

Passing a table, I saw an ECHO tape on it, and put it in my ECHO.

* * *

" _Dear [Flanksteak]. I can't help but notice the [Crimson Raiders] you are fighting pack some seeeeerious firepower; if you are going to have a chance against them, you'll need to up your arsenal. You could always arm your men with some high-quality munitions from my store. If you buy from me, those [Crimson Raiders] will be dead in no time!"_

* * *

I stared down at my ECHO, before saying "Really? He's selling to the guys who want to destroy the town he lives in? REALLY? Greedy son of-"

Continuing on as I angrily muttered under my breath, we reached a large, circular area with a pit of water in the middle, swirling in a whirlpool.

The bandits- who hadn't seen us yet- pushed one of their own into the pit, laughing as he was pulled under.

" _Look at those murderous Bloodshots._ " Said Jack, hacking like a prick as usually " _Don't you think Pandora would be better without their scum? That's all I wanna do; clean up this planet. If that means I've gotta kill bandits like you, like the Bloodshots, like all those Crimson Raider idiots in Sanctuary? Hell… I'm happy to do it._ "

"I'm not a bandit!" I said angrily "I'm a vigilante! I KILL bandits, that's my job! As it stands, you're just killing everyone you think is a-" at this point, Jack's profile picture disappeared, meaning he had hung up.

"Oh that piece of FUCKING SHIT BALLS TIED TO A-" every bandit in the room turned to face us.

"-COCK!" I yelled, blinking behind a crate.

A nomad shield-carrier fired at Salvador, destroying the crate he was hiding behind; the gunzerker pulled out both of his rifles and shot at the nomad, the bullets pinging off her shield. After he stopped, the nomad yelled "That was really your plan, midget?"

The gunslinger smiled, pointing at the nomad's feet; the bullets hadn't got through the shield, but they had driven her back on to one of the half-broken bridges over the pit.

" _Sí. Adios_ " he said, before emptying the rest of the rifle's ammo into the bridge's base, easily breaking it and sending the nomad into the water.

" _The resistance needs the info Roland gathered on the Vault._ " Said Lilith, as we finished killing the bandits " _We know Hyperion wants it opened, but we don't know why. If you rescue Roland, we might have a shot at stopping Jack._ "

"Stopping Jack is the whole reason I joined." I said "I don't like the idea of a clearly psychopathic man getting his hands on a super weapon or whatever is in the Vault; neither do I like the idea of the head of one of the corps getting their hands on a Vault; in a way, this is two birds with one high-calibre revolver round to the dick."

"Amen, dude." Said Gaige, offering her hand for the highest of fives.

We made our way to the upper level of the room, using some rubble as a pathway.

We fought the bandits who had been defending that area (including a psycho that I Sparta kicked into the water pit below), before a garage on the far side of the room opened, letting several psychos and nomads in, including a nomad in white and red, wearing a mining helmet over his leather mask.

Oh, and he was holding a rocket launcher.

A blinked away just in time to avoid a rocket that destroyed the bridge running over the water pit from one side of the room to the other, before hurling a lightning blast in his direction.

The nomad laughed, aiming his launcher at my new location; before he could pull the trigger, the end of the launcher fell off, severed by an unseen force.

Say it with me, 'Zer0'.

The assassin drove his blade into the nomad's neck, before blasting the heads off several psychos with his pistol; when one of the other nomads tried to hit him with his shield, the hitman leaped over the mutant, blasting him in the head with his shotgun whilst in the air.

After helping to deal with the other bandits, I looked to the ceiling and said "Dear god, Zer0 is so OP, he's making us look incompetent, please nerf. Love, an atheist."

Zer0 didn't verbally responded, but a smiley face appeared in front of his helmet.

As I made my way to the door the nomad came out of, I found another tape, this one from Flanksteak.

* * *

" _Bloodshots: Roland's raiders are tearin' us up. Their guns are just too dammed good. But I've come up with a solution to this problem: sack the hell up and STOP DYING ALL THE GODDAMN TIME! And quit suggesting we buy guns from that Marcus jaggoff; he lives in Sanctuary, so he's just as much of a double-crossing, holier-then-thou JACKASS as Roland and his raiders!"_

* * *

I saw Krieg start to reach for the nomad's rocket launcher, so I blinked over and snatched it whilst yelling "yoink!" before putting it in my ECHO.

"BUT… BUT… THE BOOMANITOR! IT WAS DESTINED TO-" the psycho yelled, only for me to interrupt.

"Be stolen by a bespectacled vigilante as vengeance for you stealing that grenade mod back on Southern Shelf?" I said cockily "Besides, it's broken; I'm just taking this thing for parts."

" _Goddammit, Hyperion! I didn't get half my guys killed kidnapping the most wanted criminal on Pandora just so you could IGNORE me! How 'bout fifty thousand buc- what the hell?"_

The sound of feedback came from the speakers before a new voice came over them.

" _Hellooooooo Bloodshots!_ " the voice was a young woman's with an odd accent I had trouble placing.

" _This is your queen speaking._ " She said, her voice filled with arrogance and scorn " _I've heard from a reliable source that you're trying to ransom Roland to Hyperion. Now, there are a few kinds of people on this planet I hate: first, bandit clans who DON'T follow my orders; second, the Crimson Raiders; this is a planet of chaos and murder and all the things that normal, decent madmen like, NOT the pretty gumdrop fairyland Roland's cock-sucking fuckwads want to turn this place in to._ "

" _But,_ " she continued " _You know what I hate most of all? People who work with GOD-DAMN CORPS! THOSE FUCKERS THINK THEY CAN CONTROL THE UNIVERSE JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE MONEY! WELL THEY CAN'T CONTROL US!_ " I heard her take a deep breath, calming herself " _Clearly, Flanksteak, that's not true for you. YOU contacted Hyperion. YOU tried to get ransom money from them. YOU allowed them to control you._ "

" _You ain't a bandit, Flanksteak._ " She said, venom dripping from her voice " _You ain't strong; you're weak. The strong rule, the weak serve; Morgana?_ "

A familiar voice joined in, saying " _By royal decree of the Burned Queen, the Bloodshot clan are to be purged from Pandora, their bases and lands taken for the glory of the Anarc clan, and their leader, Flanksteak, brought in for… punishment._ "

" _Thaaaat's right, Mori! For any of you who didn't get that: Burn every Bloodshot on Pandora, take over their territories, and bring that little shit Flanksteak to my fun room._ "

More feedback played as Flanksteak seem to take back control of the intercoms " _Boys! Anarc transport copters headin' right for the Stronghold! Get ready for a raid! AND ONE OF YOU KILL THOSE FUCKING INTRUDERS!_ "

More feedback, before the Queen started speaking again " _Thanks for the reminder, dead man! Fair ruffians and vagabonds of the Anarcs, a group of Vault Hunters are inside the Bloodshot Stronghold. Normally, I'd ask you to slaughter them, but these guys have proven themselves to be strong. If you have to kill them, do it, but get as many in chains as you can; they'll join us, one way or another. Mori?_ "

" _The Vault Hunter group include a solder, a man in a skin-tight suit with a helmet, a siren, a short men in an orange shirt, a girl with a cyborg arm, a bruiser-like mutant in a psycho mask, and the Storm Wraith; pictures have been sent to the knight of every squad._ "

"'Storm Wraith'?" asked Gaige.

"Some of the bandits started calling me that after they saw my powers." I replied.

" _Thanks, Mori, this is why you're my personal aide. Three more things, idiots: anyone who kills or captures a Hunter will get a knighthood; if you capture one, feel free to have some fun with them, just keep 'em alive. And finally: NO ONE, KILLS, THE WRAITH. Killing the Wraith shall be punishable by demotion to peasant, and we don't want that, now, do we?_ "

Flanksteak regained control of the intercom once more, and started barking orders to his men.

I called Lilith and said "Did you hear all that?"

" _Yeah. You need to get Roland and get out NOW. Clan wars are always violent and bloody; let's just let them sort this out themselves._ "

"What I'm wondering," said Maya "is what they want with Dominic."

I shrugged "Hell if I know; maybe she wants to kill me herself?"

Heading forwards, we came to a room with pieces of concrete - pulled straight out of the walls, if the rebar sticking out of it was any indication- placed as barricades, with a slightly raised portion of the floor on the far side of the room.

Gaige took cover behind one of the barricades, before leaning out and firing her SMG, the elemental weapon's bullets electrocuting anything they hit; seeing a cluster of enemies, she hid behind the barricade and took out her pistol and a strange, cylindrical device, covered in Tesla coils, with a hole at either; a skull was painted over one hole, so that the hole was in the skull's mouth.

The engineer screwed the device on to the barrel of her pistol, before popping out of cover and firing at the head of a marauder; when the bullets hit, the bandit's head seemed to explode into electricity, shocking and killing the bandits near him.

After dealing with the rest of the bandits, I looked at Gaige unscrewing the device and said "What was that?"

She held the device up so I could see it, and said "Like it? I call it a Shock Storm."

"How does it work?"

"Science!" she said, as if that explained everything.

Next, we came to a large open room with the floor covered in knee-high water, with crates and makeshift huts scattered about.

Krieg fired his grenade launcher, blowing up a pair of bandits, before noticing a group of bandits firing at him from inside one of the huts; the madman smiled behind his mask, before charging straight for the hut, smashing through with a yell of "OH YEAH!" before slamming his buzzaxe into the chest of one of the bandits, and shooting another with his shotgun.

When the last one tried to flee, the psycho grabbed him by his jacket and slammed him in to the ground whilst shouting "DRINK THE KOOL-AID!" When the marauder tried to stand, Krieg yelled "I SAID DRINK IT!" before stomping the bandit's head back into the water, caving in his skull in the process.

After dealing with the bandits, I found another tape, this one from Marcus.

* * *

" _Hey, Bloodshots! I notice you're not buying any of my guns. Maybe you're worried my wares aren't deadly enough for you. With that in mind, please accept this complimentary crate of Marcus Munitions weaponry. If you like what you find, maybe we can make a deal! 'Once you go Marcus Munitions, you'll never go back… us munitions…'"_

* * *

…

I don't really think I need to comment on that.

Finally, we came to a hallway full of prison cells, and heard Flanksteak say " _Somebody stop those slaggunds from springin' Roland! We lose him, we lose our payday!_ "

There were a few bandits guarding the cells, but they were dealt with fairly easily; on a table, I found another tape, with a voice I didn't recognise.

* * *

" _Flanksteak! FLANKSTEAK! Can you- can you BELIEVE these guns Marcus gave us?! There's a shotgun in here that shoots FIRE! GODDAMNED FIRE! I've been usin' it to roast my food and girlfriends. Marcus is a- is a GOD! Me and the boys got an idea - a good idea, you see? Great idea: we built him a shrine. Big shrine. Beautiful shrine. And he'll keep givin' us guns! More guns! MORE GUNS! MORE GUUUUNS!"_

* * *

"So the Bloodshot start worshiping Marcus because of the guns he sent them?" said Maya "Why?"

"They're bandits, _amiga_ ," replied Salvador "They like guns, violence, and money. And Marcus gave them _really_ good guns."

All the cells were empty, apart from the one at the end of the hall.

Inside, laying on the bed that was against the right wall, was Roland; he was dressed in the same clothes I had seen in his profile picture - a grey beret and a grey sweater with red lines on the arms and neck, and a bandolier; now, I could see he had grey gloves with a piece of light grey armour on his right forearm, whilst his left sleeve was rolled up to the elbow, showing a tattoo of a skull; he was wearing cargo pants, with a tan-and-red camo pattern, and grey combat boots, and light grey armour on his legs.

"Vault Hunters!" he said, sitting up "Good to finally meet you in person. Hell of a job fighting through those Bloodshots."

Before we could say anything, we heard the sound of something charging up, and the back wall of the cell exploded.

We raised our weapons as a Hyperion loader bot holding a SMG walked through the hole, only for Roland to hold up his hand.

"This'll just take a second."

Roland leaped off the bed, tackling the robot, before grabbing the top of the power core in its head and ripping it out, and throwing it at another loader as it came through the hole, cursing an explosion.

A third robot, armed with a shield, charged into the room, knocking Roland on to the floor.

I raised my revolver to help, but before I could, Roland spun around to face the robot…

And aimed the first bot's liberated SMG at it.

* * *

 **Roland**

 **Commander of the Crimson Raiders**

* * *

"Well," said Roland, as the robot fell to the floor filled with bullets "That's that. Now, let's see about getting out of here -"

Before he could say anything else, a massive robot slammed into the ground outside his cell, with only it's 'eye' visible through the hole.

Beams of light shot out of its eye, attaching to Roland's limbs; he grabbed the bars of the cell and shouted "Vault Hunters! You gotta stop this thing!"

"What do you think we're doing?!" yelled Axton, as we fired at the robot.

It was in vain, however, as the robot pulled Roland out through the hole and flew off before we could even get a good look at it.

" _And that's how Handsome Jack pays ransoms!_ " said the corporate tyrant " _Long time no see, Roland._ "

Krieg ripped the cell door off, and we ran through the hole just in time to see the tail end of the robot disappear through a hole in the ceiling.

As we started to fight the robots and bandits in the room, part of the ceiling caved in as a light-blue projectile smashed through it, landed on the floor, and unfolded to reveal itself to be a loader.

" _Son of a BITCH!_ " said Lilith, as we continued to fight through the room " _They're taking him to the top of the dam; get there, quick!_ "

We rushed out of the room and on to the top of the dam; night had fallen on Pandora (checking the clock on my ECHO, I saw that it was two in the afternoon. Damn it, time is confusing on the planet.), and in the dark, the dam seemed to stretch on for miles, bordered by one of the Highland's lakes on one side, and the cold tundra of Three Horns on the other.

Floodlights and bonfires illuminated the dam, allowing me to see walls and huts built from scrap metal, along with a massive golden statue of Marcus, with six arms all clutching guns.

All along the dam, a three-way battle was taking place between the Bloodshots, the Anarcs- who appeared to be getting to the dam through the use of large, rectangular helicopters made of scrap metal- and Hyperion robots, who constantly got reinforcements shot down from the Helios space station.

" _Hyperion took Roland?_ " said Angel, breaking the silence of the past day or so " _Mother of… Jack didn't send Wilhelm, did he? Please tell me Jack didn't send Wilhelm._ "

"Who's Wilhelm?" I asked.

" _Trust me: you don't want to know._ "

"But I do! I do want to know!" I said, but didn't get an answer.

As we fought our way across the dam, I noticed that the Anarc forces included nomads and bruisers: the Anarc nomads wore gasmasks and dark red robes, with the Anarc symbol on the back, and metal boots; the bruisers wore metal helms resembling medieval knight helms, with scrap metal armour over their cargo pants; their upper bodies were covered in tattoos and scars, just like the psychos.

I saw an Anarc bruiser beat a Bloodshot psycho to death with the arm of a loader, whilst yelling "LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!" before a loader painted with yellow and black stripes grabbed him in a bear hug, its power core popping out of its head and glowing, before the robot exploded.

A profile picture appeared without me even getting a call notification, but the picture only showed a stylised 'M' inside a pentacle.

" _It's beautiful, isn't it?_ " said Morgana " _So much death and chaos… anyone else turned on right now?_ "

"Who the hell are you?" asked Axton, as we all ignored Salvador's raised hand.

"Morgana," I answered "some hacker who works for the Anarcs."

" _Well, well, well, look what we have here._ " Said the hacker, tauntingly" _Evenin', Wraith. Sorry if I sounded a little too formal, earlier, but we all gotta put on airs for royalty._ "

"What the hell is your boss's problem with the Bloodshots?" asked Gaige.

" _Exactly what she said! Didn't you hear? Or do they not teach people to pay attention on Eden-5?_ "

"H-how do you know where I'm from?!"

" _Oh, I know every little thing about you,_ Gaige _, and I gotta say, that robot you built is pretty good… for an amateur._ "

"What did you just call me?!"

" _Again with the not listening! To answer your first question, the Queen's doin' what she does best: weeding out the weak. It's what any right-minded person would do!_ "

"'Right-minded'? You're bandits!" I said "I saw one of your men rip out someone's eyeballs and try to stuff them up his nose!"

" _Exactly! Among quote-unquote 'normal' society, he wouldn't be able to do that. But with us he can, and you know why? Because he's strong. You know how I became the Queen's personal aide? Because I shot the last one. You know how she BECAME the Queen? Because she disembowelled three bandit lords at once! The strong rule, the weak serve! Anyway, it's been fun talkin', but I've got shit to do. See you soon!_ "

We continued to make our way across the dam, fighting the bandits and robots along the way. Eventually, we heard Flanksteak come back on the loud speakers.

" _Bloodshots! Don't let those Anarc skaglicks take anymore ground! I'm still waiting for a response from Hyperion, and I'm sure when they get here, they'll help us deal with these freaks!_ "

The sound of a door being kicked open could be heard, before the bandit lord said " _Took ya long enough! Alright: twenty bucks for Roland! That's my FINAL offer!_ "

" _REQUEST DENIED._ " Said a Hyperion loader, before gunshots were heard, followed by Flanksteak's screams.

We found the robot that took Roland standing underneath the Marcus statue: it was oval shaped, covered in angular plates painted a greenish-blue, with tree legs and a single eye.

Floating over it was a hard-light cage with Roland inside, and upon seeing us, he yelled "Kill this Constructer so we can get the hell out of here!"

Taking cover behind some rusted our cars, we soon learned way the robot was called a Constructer, as it began digistructing loaders.

"Gaige, Sal!" I yelled "Deal with the small fry! Everyone else, let loose on the big one!"

We fired at the robot, but our bullets disintegrated before they hit it, a shimmering field of blue energy appearing around it.

"It's Shielded!" I said, holstering my revolver and making sparks appearing my hands "If you've got shock weapons, use them!"

We continued lowering the thing's Shields, and eventually, they fell.

"Its armoured, use corrosive!" I shouted, drawing my SMG.

Our bullets pelted the bot, covering it in acid and heavily damaging it.

Gaige summoned Deathtrap and pointed at the Constructor, yelling "DT, staring contest!"

The bodyguard bot nodded, before its blue eye started to glow red; it threw its head forwards and…

It shot a death ray.

A beam of red energy blasted into the Hyperion robot's eye, melting it, and then a large portion of the robot's innards.

The hard-light cage fell apart, and Roland landed on the ground in front of the robot; he looked up at the sky, and saw multiple blue fireballs coming towards the dam from the space station.

"Lunar reinforcements!" he said, grabbing an assault rifle off a dead bandit "Get ready!"

We took cover again as a small army of loaders began raining down on us; Roland threw out a box, which folded out into a turret like Axton's, but this one was considerably smaller, and projected a waist-high forcefield to its sides.

Eventually, a large, green loader with a pair of machine guns strapped to its shoulders came down; I blinked behind the robot and slashed with my sword, severing one of its arms; the robot turned to look at me, and I raised my hand, blasting water in its eye.

The loader fell, giving off sparks, and I took the opportunity to jam a grenade in one of its joints, before blinking away and watching it explode.

After the loaders stopped coming, Roland lowered his rifle and said "Thanks; I'd be dead if it weren't for you. I owe you one, soldiers."

"Don't mention it," I said "happy to help. Now, let's get the fuck out of here and leave the Bloodshots and the Anarcs to fight it out."

We left the area below the statue, and found a fast-travel station.

"This station is damaged." Said Roland "We'll have to go one at a time. Meet me back in Sanctuary. I've got a plan to stop Jack, but it won't work without you."

Roland disappeared after pressing a button on the station; I went to press something, but before I could, the station exploded.

I flew back, but Krieg caught me, and set me on my feet.

"What happened?" I said.

"If I had to guess," said Axton, before pointing to the right " _That_."

Floating in the air, just off the side of the dam, was a large aircraft, appearing similar to the Anarc transports, but larger and in better condition, and with several missile pods haphazardly attached to it.

" _Well,_ " said Morgana " _You should feel honoured!_ " she laughed.

" _It's not every day you get a royal visit!_ "

* * *

 **Well, this was longer then I expected it to be [insert 'that's what she said!' here].**

 **On to the notes:**

 **1: I've always wondered how abilities like Gaige's Shock Storm or Anarchy work, and I figure that Gaige making all sorts of weird barrel attachments makes some amount of sense. Just don't ask me how they work…**

 **2: Anyone else think it's weird that in the game, Roland calls you and gives you advice as you fight you way across the top of the dam? Did the Bloodshots not take his ECHO away? If so, why didn't he call you before then?**

 **3: And so, the Anarcs show themselves, bringing with them fire and a survival-of-the-fittest attitude! And next time, the Burned Queen herself steps out of the shadows.**

 **Be afraid. Be very,** _ **very**_ **afraid.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


	12. Update

**Hey.**

 **Sooo... this is a little awkward, I haven't updated in... _fuck_ , nearly four months.**

 **Look, I'll keep this short: I fucked up, big time. I did not mean to keep you guys waiting for this long for chapter 12, but writers block is a cruel mistress.**

 **I'm not big on long updates, so I'll just say this: The Pandoren Knight is _not_ over, this story has _not_ been abandoned; chapter 12 is on it's way; I can't say when it will be out, but it's about half finished.**

 **Sorry to keep you waiting, guys.**

 **Later, mates.**

 **- Mgellan**


	13. Fire

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for non-graphic murder**

* * *

If I have learned anything from today, it's this: having missile pods pointed at you is not as fun as advertised.

We all drew our guns, pointing them at the copter and waited for the shooting to start.

…

…

…

After a minute of just staring at the aircraft, Axton said "The fuck are they waiting for?"

"Maybe they want us to shoot first?" suggested Gaige.

"You two have fun with that." I said "Meanwhile, I'll be standing here, _not_ being blown up."

"I believe they may be trying to intimidate us." added Maya.

Eventually, the helicopter began to move closer to the dam, before turning around (several of the missile pods actually rotating to still point at us) and lowering a ramp onto the ground.

Bandits started walking out of the aircraft; mainly bruisers armed with LMGs, nomads with shotguns and shields with the Anarc symbol on them, and mutant psychos with chainsaws. Oddly, whilst they all aimed at us, none of them fired.

After the bandits stopped coming, I heard footsteps coming from the transport, walking slowly closer to the ramp.

Who knew footsteps could sound so cocky?

After a few seconds, a woman walked down the ramp - though perhaps the word _swaggered_ would be more appropriate.

She was around 5'11, and had tanned skin covered in tattoos and burn scars, and looked to be only a few year older than me; her hair was bright blond, reaching down to just below her shoulders, with the left side of her scalp shaved, and she had two streaks of what was either red paint or blood running vertically across her eyes; she wore a black vest (or tank top, as Americans call them) underneath a red leather, sleeveless duster coat, with black jeans and combat boots; her arms were covered in arm wraps, and she had fingerless gloves similar to mine, but with longer (and bloodier) spikes.

It was also worth noting that she was carrying a fucking greatsword – and I mean an actually greatsword; fantasy games and movies always get the sword terms mixed up and call arming swords 'longswords' and call both greatswords and _actually_ longswords 'greatswords'; but what she was leaning on her shoulder was the real deal, and was basically as tall as she was, and as wide as my head.

"So," she said, pointing the sword at us with one hand (holy _shit_ , she's strong; medieval knights training their entire lives to fight couldn't even lift a greatsword with one hand, let alone _wave it about_ ) "you're the Hunters my soldiers have been telling me about."

She turned the sword and stabbed downwards, jamming it a few feet deep in the concrete (again, holy shit) before continuing "Normally, I'd just get my men to bring you to me, but I was bored, and you can only torture so many slaves to death before you need something more action packed, you know?"

"Ah, but where are my manners." She said, smirking "I am the Burned Queen, rightful ruler of the bandits of Pandora and leader of the Anarcs… but please, call me Alice."

* * *

 **Alice**

 **Some people just want to watch the world burn… literally**

* * *

"… uhh, yeah, nice to meet you too." I said, never lowering my revolver from where it was aimed at her head "… Not that I'm complaining, but why haven't you killed us yet?"

"I've been watching you since you took out Flynt – thanks for that by the way, he was a fucking weakling – and I've so graciously decided that you're strong enough."

"Enough for…?"

"To join the Anarcs, of course!" she answered "We're always looking for the strong men and women of Pandora to bring in to our little gang."

"And why, exactly, would we want to join?" asked Maya.

"Well, apart from the fact we have a shit-ton of guns pointed at ya, strong people like you will raise through the ranks quickly, and that comes with benefits – drugs, guns, slaves, you name it."

"Yeah, you lost me at 'join a group of anarchistic criminals." I said "Was there anything else, or can we get to the shooting now?"

"Oh, don't act like you're any better, Wraith."

"At least I don't kill unarmed villagers."

"That just means you like to be challenged; now, Fuckface – can I call you Fuckface?"

"No."

"OK, Fuckface; I've got a question for you."

"Do I need to answer it?"

"If you want to keep your balls attached, you will. That thing you do, with the lightning and the water and teleporting, how do you do it?"

"… In all honesty? I have no fucking idea; I just think about it and it happens."

"Really, huh? No clue how it works? A shame; if my boys could do the shit you do… well, I think you deserve a reward for being honest."

"Oh? What kind of reward?"

"You gave me info, so I'll give you info."

She held out her hand to the side, smiling like a lunatic, before clutching her hand into a fist and opening it again.

And revealing a ball of fire in her hand.

Whenever I use my powers, I get a… feeling, I guess you could say; this weird sensation deep inside me that gets weaker the more I use my powers without rest.

But as I watched that ball of fire in her hand, I felt it, but it felt… twisted, like something fundamentally _wrong_ was happening.

"You… you can… how?!" I said, lowering my gun in shock.

"That's for me to know and for you to figure out on you own." She said, smiling as the flames continued to burn.

"… Whatever," I said, raising my revolver again "I'm not joining your little gang of murderers, so can we get to the shooting now?"

"So that's how you gonna play it? Fine." She ripped the greatsword out of the ground and walked back on to the aircraft, stopping only to say over her shoulder "Boys… sic 'em."

Without a moment's hesitation, the bandits began firing at us, our Shields nearly giving out before we could find cover.

Axton tried to fire back, but ducked back down before he could shoot "Yeah, normally, I'd rather get kicked in the balls then say this, but we need to run!"

We retreated back the way we came, taking pot-shots over our shoulders as we went, only to meet a horde of Anarc forces headed in the opposite direction.

We hid behind some shacks near the edge of the dam, pinned down by fire from both sides.

"Anyone got a plan?!" yelled Gaige.

I franticly looked around trying to see something that we could use to escape.

' _Bandits to the west and south, and a wall on the north, with a sheer drop to the east… wait…'_

"I may have one!" I yelled back "If we jump off the side of the dam the lakes on-"

"Are you mad?!" interrupted Maya "Have you not heard of surface tension? At the speeds we would be going at, we might as well be hitting concrete!"

I pulled one of my grenades out of my ECHO and showed it to her.

"That… might actually work." Said Maya, looking like she was thinking deeply "If we time it right… and if I use my powers to slow us down and make them fall faster then us…"

"Yeah, can someone translate the nerd speak?" said Axton.

"They're saying that if we throw grenades into the lake so that they explode right before we land, the surface tension will be broken and we _might_ be able to land safely." said… Krieg.

We stared at the psycho for a few seconds, before he yelled "NIPPLE SALED!"

"… Correct…" said Maya "Well, I do believe that it's the best plan we have, unless any one else has-"

"Why don't we just shoot everything and go out in a blaze of glory?" said Sal.

"… Explosive diving it is."

I opened my ECHO and equipped the grenade mod with the biggest explosive radius, as Maya said "Everyone ready?"

After hearing the chorus of yeses, she said "Ok, GO!"

We broke from cover and ran for the side of the dam as fast as we could, bullets hitting the ground around us as well as our Shields.

My feet hit the ground again and again, my eyes flicking between my destination and my Shield gauge.

With one more muted impact on my back, the Shield broke, the hard-light construct falling apart like shattered glass.

But it had held just long enough.

With one final push against the ground – and my acrophobia – I leapt off the dam.

And I fell.

…

… This was a bad plan…

… This was a stupid plan…

The wind howled around m as I tried desperate to keep hold of both the grenades and my senses.

I only kept hold of one.

My mind fell into panic as the water grew closer.

' _Fuck fuck fuck fuck I'm going to die why did I suggest this I've killed us all fuck shit damn arse balls FUCK'_

Through the wind and panic I could make out a voice coming from my ECHO – Maya.

" _ON MY MARK, THROW!_ "

I pulled together enough of my willpower to ready myself.

" _NOW!_ "

The grenades had barely left my hand before being covered in a purple glow, and rocketing down to the water as I felt a force pull me up – not enough to stop me, but enough to slow me down.

 _Splash_

…

 _BOOM!_

 _Splash!_

* * *

After a few minutes of panicked swimming, I pulled myself onto the shore, and flopped on to my back, catching my breath.

"That was AWESOME!" yelled Gaige, from a few feet away.

"Speak… for… yourself." I replied, pulling myself to my feet.

The others dragged themselves to the shore and joined us, apart from Maya, who collapsed and seemed to fall unconscious.

"What's with her?" said Sal.

Krieg picked her up, the action seeming disturbingly gentle for someone his size "I read something awhile ago that said sirens can get headaches or fall unconscious if they over use their powers."

"You can read?" said Axton.

"ONLY THAT WHICH HAS BEEN WRITTEN IN THE BILE OF BADGERS!"

"We should move." Said Gaige "They might send search parties to make sure we're dead."

I looked around, spotting a few familiar landmarks.

"I might know a place."

* * *

Nearly an hour later, we arrived at a cave with vines covering the entrance.

"This is your plan? A cave?" bitched Axton, as he continued being a bitch.

"You'll see." I said, brushing the vines aside and pulling a torch out of my ECHO as I entering the cave.

We walked in the tunnel for a few minutes before coming to a large open chamber that was entirely devoid of light.

There could have been anything in the darkness – bandits, giant spiders, goblins.

(Ok, maybe not that last one)

Which was why I loudly yelled "HEY!"

Nothing happened.

And then we were covered in red dots.

" _Alright, fleshbags,_ " came a woman's voice from the darkness " _you have five seconds to get the hell out before I... I… Dom?_ "

"It's me, now could you please stop pointing that light at my eye?"

The red dots disappeared, before light flooded the cave.

Before us was the hull of a space ship, rusted and overgrown, but holding, with bits of scrap metal welded over the larger holes and several flood lights attached to the hull.

They were also a large number of gun turrets on the side, aiming near us.

I'm proud of those; they took ages to fix.

" _Didn't think you'd be back by now, welcome home, dork._ "

I began walking towards the ship, hearing the others following me.

"What is this place?" I heard Sal say.

Feeling like being dramatic, I turned and said "Ladies, gentlemen, and variations there upon! Welcome…" I threw my arms to the side "To the _Elysium_."

Almost as soon as I said that, a part of the hull fell off and hit the ground behind me.

"…It's meant to do that." I said, not looking back.

We made our way through the cave to the ship, entering one of the smaller holes in the hull.

"Who was the chick on the intercom?" asked Axton.

" _This 'chick' can hear you, pretty boy._ "

I rolled my eyes at the two of them "That's Hestia, the ship's AI; follow me, we should get Maya to somewhere she can rest."

After walking down the corridors for a few minutes, I heard a voice say "OH FOR FU-FU-FUCK'S SAKE."

I turned to look into one of the doors lining the wall, seeing a loader bot with messy welding marks crisscrossing its body, and a large amount of exposed circuitry.

"Hey, Jerk-face." I said.

"STOP CALLING-ING ME THAT." they said, their monotone voice somehow managing to sound indignant "IF YOU HAVE TO CALL-CALL ME ANYTHING, CALL ME RUST."

* * *

 **RU-57**

 **Has the face of a jerk**

* * *

"You have a loader bot?" asked Gaige, staring at Rust with curiosity.

"HE STOLE ME-ME FROM A HYPERION FACILITY TO TEST HIS FREAKY POWERS ON-ON." the robot explained, following us as we continued through the ruined ship "IDIOT ENDED UP BLOWING ME UP-UP-UP THOUGH; AT LEAST HIS LASER BROKE."

" _Oh, yeah!_ " said Hestia " _Some of the parts blow up 'cause he didn't put it back together properly the last time he modified it; the dork thought it was recoil until I reminded him that lasers don't work that way._ "

"Ok, in my defence, I had just hit my head." I interrupted.

"ANYWAY-WAY," said Rust "THEY PUT ME BACK TOGETHER-ER – BADLY – AND I'VE BEEN STAY-STAYING HERE SINCE; I MEAN, I DON'T HAVE ANYWHERE ELSE TO GO, RIGHT-RIGHT?"

"You seem… smart, for a Hyperion bot." said Gaige, who appeared to be wincing at my sloppy workmanship with welding the jerk back in to one piece.

" _It's the weirdest thing._ " said Hestia " _When we turned 'em back on, they were just… aware, and also a little bitch._ "

"FUCK YOU."

"You know," said Gaige, sounding mischievous "I could take a look at their programming for you…"

"… KEEP HER AWAY FROM-ROM ME."

Gaige frowned, before saying "Alright, trade; you let me look at your programming, and I'll fix you up, _properly_." she glared at me, her eyes filled with disappointment.

I shrugged at her "Robots are not high-calibre sniper rifles."

"DEAL, BUT IF YOU MESS WITH MY HEAD, I'LL BRAKE YOUR-YOUR LEGS."

We finally reached the… I don't know what the word is for the part of the ship where people live, so I'm just going to say 'habitation area'; Krieg took Maya into one of the rooms and put her on the bed.

"Right," I said "so, ah, make yourselves at home, I guess. If you need anything, just ask Hestia. I'm going to go grab my tools and stuff to take back to Sanctuary."

" _Uhh, Dom?_ "

"Yes?"

" _We… may have visitors_ "

A holo screen appeared, showing footage from a camera hidden in a bush by the cave entrance; a massive group of Anarcs had gathered outside, and looked to be preparing to enter.

"WELL, WE'RE DE-DEAD"

"Wait, don't you have those big turrets?" Gaige asked.

I scratched the back of my head, laughing nervously "Weeeeelllll…"

Everyone apart from Rust turned to glare at me.

"I… kinda sorta thought that no one would every really attack so I… kinda sorta just… fixed up the turrets to look like they worked."

You know when a silence is so thick you can tell everyone is judging you?

That happened.

"It's on my to-do list!"

Axton crossed his arms "Seriously? How the fuck have you survived this long?"

I opened my mouth to say defend myself…

"That's… honestly a good question."

Suddenly, my ECHO started to beep; I answered it and said "Uhh, hi?"

A heavily distorted voice came from the other end of the call " _You are in some serious shit right now friend._ "

"Yeah, I kinda got that already; who is this?"

" _The short answer is that I represent a group that's… let's say 'interested' in the things that our mutual acquaintance Alice has been doing as of late; I've been working undercover inside the Anarcs for sometime now_ "

"Good for you." Said Gaige "The fuck's that got to do with us?"

" _I sent my bosses a report about your little war against Hyperion; thing is, they've got it out for Jack as well, and asked me to extended to you an offer._ "

I looked up at the others and mouthed "Opinions?" and got a chorus of shrugs, before saying "What's the offer?"

" _We share info about the Anarcs and Hyperion; if you need something from us we'll see what we can do and vice versa; before you say anything, I'll give you a freebie as a show of faith. The Anarcs use drones to scout out areas for the people they're searching for; look back at the camera feed._ "

Outside, a small drone – little more than a claptrap eye crudely attached to a thruster, with small wings on the side – came out of the cave before it's eye blinked red and it beeped twice.

" _Damn it!_ " I heard " _The Wraith must've used 'is magic!_ "

" _That's a loada bull; his 'magic' is just a story the cowards who ran from him spread so that don't look weak._ "

" _Our boss can throw fire, numb nuts!_ "

" _SHUT UP AND KEEP SEARCHING!_ "

As the horde of bandits walked away from the cave, the voice from the ECHO chimed in " _So… interested in our offer?_ "

"… Errrr, vote?" I said "All those in favour raise your hand."

Gaige, Zer0, Krieg and I raised our hands.

"Bad idea; never trust random weirdos who feel the need to hide their voice." Said Axton, as Salvador nodded in agreement.

" _Well, looks like you're gonna have to, Axton._ "

"And they know my name, greaaaaat."

" _Heh. I'll be in touch._ "

"Wait!" I said "What should we call you."

"… _Where was the first Vault discovered?_ " and with that, they cut the line.

I looked at the others in confusion before Gaige said "Prometheus."

I got the mythological reference, and for some reason, I did not like the implications.

* * *

 **Uhhhh, hey.**

 **Sooooo… *coughs nervously* let's get this out of the way.**

 **I've not updated in a long time; I got writer's block bad and got stuck at Alice saying 'sic 'em'.**

 **Then I got back into the groove… only to get stuck at Rust agreeing to Gaige's offer.**

 **I'm gonna try not to let this happen again, and to that end, I'm not gonna go back to the old schedule; I'm gonna write when I feel like writing, upload when I've got the chapter ready, and hopefully not burn myself out again.**

 **So, anyway, the notes:**

 **1: We finally meet The Burned Queen, Alice! Wielder of giant swords! And she's got powers like our cloaked hero! And I don't have a third point!**

 **2: I'm fully aware that the grenade diving thing may not work in real life; let's just ignore that and remember Pandora has lower gravity than Earth. What even is a physics?**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite; go read something else if you don't**

 **Later, mates!**

 **God I've missed saying that**

 **EDIT: Forgot to mention: in chapter 1 I mentioned my sister; in the time since, they have come out as trans, and i have thus gone back and changed it to say brother and he. Just thought i should say so no one goes back and gets confused**


	14. Duel

**I don't own Borderlands. Trigger warning for.. actually, no one gets killed this time. that's a change.**

* * *

We set off back to Sanctuary the next day, followed by a newly-refurbished Rust who said "Now that my legs don't give out if I walk more than a mile, I'm not gonna just stay here forever."

Hestia had been sad to see us go, since she couldn't keep in touch without someone tracking the comms and finding her; just as I was explaining this to the others, I got a text from [ERROR – USER NOT FOUND] saying 'Don't worry, we'll take care of it. It wouldn't do for our new allies to lose their homes.'

Somehow, that wasn't reassuring.

After finding a Fast Travel station we teleported back to the city and made our way back to the Crimson Raider HQ, seeing Roland and Lilith on the balcony overlooking the street.

"How the hell did those bandits snag you, anyway?" I heard Lilith say.

"Uh... I was taking a leak and one of 'em knocked me out."

"Wow. You are a dumbass."

"Yeah... I, uh... yeah, heh. Total dumbass."

"I was joking, dude. I'm happy to see you."

"Oh, uh. Thanks."

"…This is where you say you're happy to see me, too."

"Oh, uh. Right. I, uh… it's good to see you?"

"Smooth."

The others went though the door but I stood outside, trying to remember something. Gaige turned around to say something and noticed that I wasn't following "Dude, you ok?"

"Wait… WAIT A SECOND!" I Blinked up onto the balcony, pointing an accusatory figure at Roland "We were talking on the ECHO when you got captured! Were you pissing while you talked to us?!"

Lilith looked between us before giving Roland a look "…Really?"

Roland scratched the back of his head, not making eye contact with either of us "Well, i-

The others walked onto the behind me, and Maya said "I'm fairly certain we have more important matters to discuss."

Roland nodded "Handsome Jack is gonna kill us all unless you can stop him."

Lilith rolled her eyes "He means 'hi'. That's his way of saying 'hi'."

"Right, sorry. Hi. What happened? I thought you were right behind me, then you weren't answering calls."

"You called us?" I asked.

"I set up a jammer/so we wouldn't be tracked. Guess/it blocked the calls too." Said Zer0.

"Why didn't you say anything? And don't just say 'you didn't ask.'"

His only answer was the appearance of a smiley face hologram in front of his helmet.

Maya cleared her throat before saying "After you left, Roland, the FT Station was destroyed by a missile fired by an Anarc helicopter. It landed and revealed that they were carrying the Burned Queen, who attempted to recruit us."

"Guessing by the fact you're standing here, you turned her down." Said Lilith

"Correct. We escaped and hid in a location known by Dominic."

"Ok, sorry to but in," said Lilith "Are we just, like, going to ignore the fact a loader bot is standing here?"

We turned around, seeing Rust behind us.

"…HI."

I chuckled nervously "Oh, right, forgot." I turned back to Roland "This is RU-57 – I call them Rust – they're a friend of mine-"

"I'M NOT YOUR FRIEND."

"- who wants to stay in the city."

Lilith crossed her arms, glaring suspiciously at the robot "It 'wants' to stay here?"

"Rust is fully sapient. I don't understand how it happened either, but the point is they hate Jack."

"HE'S KIND OF AN ASSHOLE."

"Fine," conceded Lilith "but if it tries any funny business it's gone."

"CALL ME AN 'IT' ONE MORE TIME AND I BREAK BOTH YOUR LEGS AND LEAVE YOU FOR THE RAKKS."

We were all silent as the siren and the robot glared at each other, before Lilith snorted and said "I like 'em."

"…Anyway," I said "while we were at my place, we got a call from someone calling themselves 'Prometheus' who told us they work for a group with something against Hyperion and the Anarcs; they're willing to share information and favours with us."

"Do you trust them?" asked Roland.

"Fuck no. but they did save our lives and get the Anarcs off our tail."

"Huh, did they give you a way to contact them?"

"They just said 'we'll be in touch.'"

"Wait a moment," said Maya "Didn't Zer0 say he had a signal jammer active?"

"Yeah, why? I asked.

"Then how did they call you?"

…

"…Ok, now I'm a little scared."

"Whoever they are," said Roland "we need their information. I'll be honest, soldiers: we're losing this war. We've been trying to stop Jack for years: taking out his men, raiding his Eridium mines, but it hasn't been enough. But you... you met Jack and lived. You fought off the Rippers, the Bloodshots, AND the Anarcs, saved my ass and Lilith's-"

"Thanks, by the way."

"If we're going to survive this, we need your help, Vault Hunter. Now, we thought Jack wanted to open a Vault and use its power to wipe us off Pandora, but, thanks to some intel I stole from a Hyperion convoy, I found out... we were wrong."

"What?" we all said in unison.

"He's not going to open a Vault. He's going to _control_ it."

There was silence for a few seconds before Lilith said "I'll just go ahead and repeat myself: what?"

"The Vault Jack's looking for isn't an alien prison, or a cache of weapons. It's a living thing. An ancient Eridian warrior, powerful enough to destroy all life on Pandora. Whoever awakens it, gets to control it."

"So it's like, a murder bot or something?" asked Gaige.

"That sounds… bad." Said Lilith.

"If Jack wakes the Warrior, yeah." Continued Roland "But if we control the Warrior first..."

Lilith grinned "We could use it to wipe Hyperion off the map. Alright, I'm likin' this plan."

"There's a problem. We need the Vault Key to wake the Warrior. And Jack's already got it. But, if you've spoken to Tannis-"

"She didn't vomit when she saw you, did she? She does that, sometimes."

"Nah," I said "she seemed cool; a little weird, but that's never a bad thing in my opinion."

"-She might've told you the Key needs to be charged with Eridium. We're racing against time; every ounce of that stuff Jack mines from the ground puts him closer to taking control of that Warrior and wiping us out. We've gotta get our hands on that Vault Key. Now, if anybody knows where that Key's being kept, it's my spy out in Tundra Express. I'll try and get in contact with him, but Hyperion is monitoring comms traffic, so it might take awhile."

"You should get some rest while you wait." Said Lilith "You look… well, like shit."

"Moxxi's?" asked Sal, looking at Axton.

"Moxxi's." he nodded, before the two walked off to try they hand at surviving alcohol poisoning.

I was considering my own plans for my free time, before a something small and cold hit me in the side of the head.

I picked it up, finding it was a key, and looked up and Gaige stifling a laugh "Well done dude."

"Yeah, yeah; what's this for?"

"Last time we were here, I rented the basement of the garage from Scooter to use as a workshop. Turns out it's bigger than I need, so I figure we could share it; half for me to build my robot army of chaos, half for you to make weapons of mass destruction!"

"Awesome, let me grab my tools from my place and we can go set up."

* * *

Gaige and I spend the rest of the day clearing out the basement and moving equipment in. Deathtrap handled the heavy lifting, and anything we didn't have we could buy and digistruct off the ECHOnet (if it was legal) or get from the black market in town (if it was, as Gaige put it, 'fun'.)

The room was fairly large, with gray metal walls newly covered in posters for bands, games, and movies, and smelled of oil, blood (don't ask, not my fault), and that thing we found jammed in an air vent we think might have been a sandwich eons ago. The right side of the room was Gaige's uncharacteristically organised workshop; Magnetic boards, covered in hammers and wrenches and power tools and things I didn't know shit about lined the walls, hanging above workbenches that were already covered in motor oil and parts from scrapped robots. In the middle of her space was a platform with several clamps and robotic arms extending both from it and the ceiling above it, which were currently holding a half disassembled Loader bot.

My side was mostly the same, but without the platform, and the tools hanging above the workbench were made for building guns, not scrapping robots and putting them back together; I hadn't needed as much space a Gaige, so a corner on my side was instead converted into a hangout area, with a couch, a large TV, several games consoles, and a fridge stocked with snacks.

The day after we had set it up, I was alone in the workshop, standing over a table with my ECHO, my bow, and several weights on it.

"This proves it." I said into the recording ECHO "My bow's draw weight has increased; I didn't notice until now because it seems to have increased proportionately to my physical strength. Additionally, I've found out it seems to be much harder to damage than it should be; whilst I was deconstructing a Maliwan pistol, the corrosive-element core destabilised briefly, splashing acid on the part of the workbench the bow was on, but after cleaning it off, the bow was perfectly fine."

"This bow was one of the things I found when I first… arrived, shall we say, so clearly whatever its deal is is linked to whatever happened to me. Further experiments will be needed to-" I heard the door to the basement open.

Quickly stopping the recording, I stored the bow and weights in the ECHO and moved to the other side of the workbench and tried to look busy.

"Sup', Blondie?" said Gaige, coming down the stairs and walking over to me to look at what I was doing.

Instead of her normal outfit, Gaige was dressed in a black vest (I think Americans call them tank tops? And then call tank tops vests? American English is weird) with an anarchy symbol on it, jeans, and a pair of combat boots.

"Nothing much, just putting the finishing touches on some projects."

"Ooohh, show me."

"Well first there's this." I gestured to a pile of scrap parts surrounding a device made of white metal, glowing purple wires crisscrossing its body.

"I pulled that shitty LMG we stole from Doc Mercy apart and found the bit that makes it shoot lasers. Not sure yet what I'm gonna do with it, but I'm sure it'll be cool."

Next I pointed to where Captain Flynt's helmet lay in two parts, the face plate cut from the main body, with a pane of glass covering the T-shaped visor, and a leather strap on the back.

"Remember when Krieg let me keep Flynt's helm? Well, it's not a weapon, but I figured 'What goes well with a cloak? A bad-arse mask!'"

Gaige reached over and grabbed the mask, pulling the strap over her head and placing it on her face before looking around confused "Uhh, everything looks weird."

"I'd be more surprised if it didn't, frankly; the glass is prescription." I reached up and tapped the side of my glasses.

"What's up with your eyes, anyway?" she said, taking the mask off and putting it down.

"I'm near-sighted, everything further than my outstretched arm is blurry as shite without corrective lens. Anyway, I figure aside from looking cool, and could give this thing all sorts of cool upgrades, like… _Knight_ -vision."

Gaige burst out laughing "Dude, that was shit."

I smirked, bowing dramatically "I aim to displease!"

I reached over to my final project, a pair of guns pieced together from different parts; some parts, such as the clips and the triggers, were from Bandit _smig_ SMGs, and had been covered in dirt and blood before I cleaned them, revealing the gray colour beneath, where as other parts, such as the barrels, were brown and came from Vladof _Anarchist_ pistols.

"I remembered you saying you wanted a pair of handheld SMGs, so I put these together; I've tested them, and the recoil is certainly… noticeable, shall we say, but they pack a hell of a punch."

"Woah." Gaige took them from me and inspected them "Do they have names?"

"Well, I saved the blueprints under the name _Eris_ after the Greek goddess of chaos –seemed appropriate – but you can name them whatever you want, really."

"Humm, I'll think about it." Gaige stored the guns in her ECHO, before rising her hand for a high five "Thanks, dude, I owe you one."

I high fived her, before she walked over to her side of the room and reached up to her shoulder.

Without the sleeve of her shirt covering it, I could see where her metal arm met her flesh; a ring of metal was attached to the stump of her left arm, just below her shoulder. As I watched, she grabbed the top of her cyborg limb, and with _click!_ her arm disconnected, and she placed it on the table.

"I've got some ideas to upgrade my arm; I don't know about you, but when I punch a guy, I want his ribs to not be there anymore. While I get started, could you do me a solid and grab me a pizza from Moxxi's?"

I leaned on my workbench and gave her a look "The ECHOnet exists, mate, we can just order online and digistruct it here in, like, 3 seconds."

"Yeah, but that stuff's shit, Mox doesn't deliver, and my pizza retrieving drone is still a work in progress."

We looked at the aforementioned drone as it, hearing itself mentioned, shakily rose from a nearby table, turned towards the exit to the basement…

And then accelerated to approximately a hundred miles per hour, slammed into a wall, and shattered to pieces.

"Look, I've said it before, and I'll say it again: it doesn't need to go anywhere near that speed."

"But then it won't get pizza as fast!"

"Currently, it doesn't get pizza at all."

Gaige shoved a handful of dollars in my face "Will you just get me the damn pizza?"

I snatched the money from her hand, threw my arms in the air, and Blinked up to street level.

* * *

As I was walking down the street, I, obviously, did not expect anything to happen; I was in a (more or less) safe town with little chance of bandits or animals getting in, so I assumed I could walk around without anything happening.

As you can probably tell, I was wrong.

I was a few streets from Moxxi's when a fucking sword fell out of the sky and landed in the ground about twenty feet in front of me.

I stopped, staring at the sword; it had a gray handle with a katana blade that was mainly made of black metal, with the edge glowing blue and giving off a very faint hum.

I recognised the blade as Zer0's, and was thus only slightly confused when I saw the hitman appear out of thin air, kneeling next to the sword, holding the handle in one hand.

"Zer0?" I said, as he stood, pulling the blade from the ground "you want something, or did you just want to scare the shit out of me?"

"Let's duel, you and I," he said, pointing the katana at me "so we can compare blades / and see whose more skilled."

I had frankly forgotten Zer0's request to duel me; the train where I had met the others was little more than a week ago, but it seemed like a life time.

I was fully aware I couldn't take Zer0 in a fight. He was a highly skilled assassin with unparalleled skill, I was some kid with like, three months experience; he had a high-tech katana that was the next best thing to a lightsabre, I had a sabre I took off a dead bandit.

Nevertheless, I tapped a button on my ECHO and digistructed my sword.

"How about we make this interesting? No guns, obviously, I don't get to use my powers, and you can't use your cloaking device"

"How interesting / no lightning or trickery... I / accept your terms, knight"

I stood ready, smiling in spite of the fact I was going to lose, _badly_ "So… first one to break the other's shield wins?"

Zer0 chuckled "No, first blood."

This was a bad idea, methinks.

The assassin rushed forwards with speeds I was fairly certain humans shouldn't be able to reach, taking a swing at me I was barely able to block, followed by one that came so fast after the last I didn't even have time to register he moved before he had hit me.

This was how the fight went; he would strike me, and either I blocked, and he hit me anyway, or I took the hit and swung at him, in which case he knocked my blade away and hit me again.

Needless to say, he kicked my arse.

After awhile, I swung at him and in order to dodge he jumped back, before rushing back towards me, looking like he was going to try and hit my arm; I braced to block…

Only for him to change direction at the last second and hit my leg.

My shield gave out, shattering as the hitman moved quickly behind me and slammed a fist into my knee. Without the shield softening the blow, I fell to my knees, only to feel Zer0's hand grab my neck and throw me to the ground.

The assassin swung one last time, leaving a fine cut on my arm – deep enough to draw blood, but not really an injury.

"Fuck!" I yelled, grabbing my arm "Was that really necessary?!"

The assassin offered me a hand to help me up "That was your own fault / you should have paid attention / and looked through the lie."

"Yeah, yeah, says the trained killer to the rookie."

The hitman pressed a button on the hilt of his sword, the blade disappearing in the blue light of digistruct technology as he placed the hilt on his belt "Your skill will grow, knight / I would be willing to teach / if you wish to learn."

"Wait, really? You know, for an assassin, you're an alright guy."

"Not a guy."

"oh… nonbinary?"

"Yep."

" _Ahem._ "

I turned to see Claptrap standing a few feet away; I immediately knew something was up when I saw that his eye was orange instead of its usual blue.

Me and Zer0 shared a look before I said "err… you okay there, Clappy?"

" _Oh, he can't hear you_ ;" instead of Clap's normally high pitched voice, he spoke in a voice that was deep, and heavily distorted; his body language was different, too: Claptrap flailed his arms and rocked back and forth whenever he spoke, but now he just stood incredibly still " _I've taken remote_ _control of this CL4P-TP steward bot unit. I'm surprised to find one here; Hyperion sent out a kill code to disable them when they discontinued them._ "

It clicked in my head who I was really talking to "Prometheus."

" _The same, and I'm here with an offer._ "

My ECHO pinged as it automatically downloaded something and opened up the map, showing a structure that looked like it was in The Dust.

" _One of my agents has some intel that could benefit us both, but he's unable to upload it to me without the Anarcs knowing; that Morgana is one twisted woman, but she knows her stuff when it come to cyber security._ "

"So you need us to go shoot the place up?" I asked, starting to catch on to Prometheus's meaning.

" _No, the force in that base is too great for you to beat; I want you to walk through the front door._ "

I stared down in disbelief at the hacked robot "I'm sorry, _what_?"

" _You heard me. I will provide you with a disguise, and you will walk into the base and retrieve the information on an external drive, whilst Zer0 guides you._ "

"This, this is a dumb plan; for one, why me? Why not one of the others?"

" _In short? I trust you most: Axton, Salvador, and Krieg could imitate the attitude of a bandit, but I doubt they're ability to follow a plan; Maya can follow plans, but I don't believe she could give a convincing performance with how little she has been around these sort of people; Gaige… is both problems at once._ "

" _You, however, have spent a great deal of time around bandits since your… arrival, on this planet, and are capable of listening. I would prefer Zer0 to do this, but they are, to my knowledge, reluctant to remove their suit, making disguise tactics problematic._ "

"Correct." Agreed Zer0, who, as always, was super calm despite the fact that what was going on was ridiculous and stupid.

"Well, why can't Zer0 just sneak in and your guy can give them the thing somewhere private?"

" _It's a bandit camp, those aren't big on privacy; the high ups get paranoid if the lackeys have even breathe somewhere that they can't see._ "

"You not fucking going to let this go, are you."

" _Nope, good luck._ " And with that, Claptrap powered down, before turning back on with his eye back to its normal colour "-and then I said- wait, where am I? What happened? Oh! Hi minions!"

I facepalmed "I just- I came outside to get pizza. It's not even for me, I hate pizza."

Zer0 reached over and awkwardly patted my arm, whilst Claptrap started going on a tangent about pizza.

I hate this planet.

* * *

 **Never a calm moment on Pandora, eh?**

 **1: The inconsistencies between what we hear on the ECHO when Roland gets captured and the story he tells Lilith always bothered me. Someone at Gearbox fucked up there.**

 **2: I always figured Gaige must have some kind of workshop somewhere, since putting together a giant murder bot takes space.**

 **3: I head canon Zer0 as nonbinary, don't know why, just seems to fit.**

 **So, ya'know, review, follow and favourite if you like it, go read something else if you don't.**

 **Later, mates!**


End file.
